Abstract
At present, The Pharmacy council has launched the notification on Guidelines for Telepharmacy, with some additional details required to be stated for the setting of continuous and efficient operating in telepharmacy, while conforming current changes of society and technology. This study aimed to conduct the standard of telepharmacy and guidelines for pharmaceutical care and to develop data architecture which supports and facilitates the operating of telepharmacy. This study was designed in accordance with development research, in which it was divided into 2 phases. The first phase, literature review was done from guideline/standard of practice of foreign references and acceptable standard transportation requirements which was primarily analyzed for the suitability in consistency of context. Team on synthesis research has drafted the guideline of telepharmacy and guidelines for pharmaceutical care. Summary of the guidelines was obtained according to the group discussions of stakeholders and opinions from pharmacists. In the second phase, the draft of data architecture for supporting the telepharmacy was conducted in accordance with information from phase I. Additional suggestions from stakeholders were obtained, prior to the summary of data architecture. Phase I study result provided the basic guideline for telepharmacy that was consisted of minimum dataset (composing of patients’ information, prescription, dispensing, pharmaceutical care service, and drug transportation); the basic guideline for telepharmacy (in which it contained 8 components i.e., location, customer service approach, information technology, transportation, etc.); and guidelines for pharmaceutical care (including prescription analysis and pre-dispensing for remote prescription, drug transportation, and remote counseling. The result of phase II study provided the draft of data architecture using HL7-FHIR for standard messaging and standardizing the database which contributes to the data exchange among organizations and leads further to better outcome in patient care. Finally, this study proposed the Pharmacy Council of Thailand to implement the guidelines, standard data set, and capacity building for community pharmacist on telepharmacy service.
