Die Apotheke als Forschungsstandort

Pharmacists and their teams are in an excellent position to participate in research into their activities and to generate knowledge that can improve health care.

For the development of the community pharmacy as an indispensable link in primary care, proof of the appropriateness, cost-effectiveness and effectiveness of existing and future services must be provided. Practice-oriented research is essential to document the benefits that pharmacies provide on a daily basis. It is not enough to document customer and patient satisfaction - no, we must elaborate results that are clinically relevant.

In order to achieve more active involvement of pharmacists, a minimum of research skills must also be imparted in training and continuing education. Participation in research projects should not be seen as an annoying burden, but as an indispensable part of daily work. Researchers on their side must combat eventual lack of understanding and deficient willingness to actively participate in research projects.

Ultimately, the costs of participation in research projects should also be compensated. With regard to the data collected daily in pharmacies, this "gold mine" should also be used more actively in epidemiological studies or, if necessary, made available not only for marketing activities but also for clinically relevant studies; again with adequate compensation. Unfortunately, this resource is still rarely used.

This presentation will show how research can be carried out successfully in pharmacies, how participatory and even interprofessional research is possible and how this has been achieved in individual examples. (e.g. mystery shopping, on-site observation, evaluation of patient adherence from pharmacy dispensing data, pharmacogenotyping as a pharmacy service).