The Value of Pharmacists: Appreciative Inquiry Approach

Abstract

Introduction: This study investigated the value of pharmacists, to study and set the appreciative roles of pharmacist under the concept of Appreciative Inquiry (AI). Materials and Method: Data were collected during May-September 2011. Qualitative research techniques including observation, in-depth interview and focus group discussion with AI concepts were used in this study. The information was collected from 43 stakeholders: hospital administrators, pharmacists, physicians, nurses and clients at seven government hospitals and the Provincial Health Office in one province. Results: The results showed that values of pharmacist were accepted by the external stakeholders and realized or higher the roles by themselves. The process of pharmacists’ value creation had three main components: expanding pharmacists’ roles to population-based pharmacy service; realization of the spiritual dimension in holistic health care; and integration and value addition among members of multi-disciplinary teams. Integration and value addition were seen as a background to the value creation process. The appreciative roles of pharmacists in stakeholder’s perspectives were: to be medicinal experts and support co-workers or clients; to be accepted for useful roles from communities or society; to be recognized or respected sincerely from others; to be the professionals who realize the corporate interests and focus on social or clients’ interests; to be the professionals who provide humanized health care services and respect mankind; to be the professionals who can understand deeply their own roles and others’; to be a professional that other professionals and other people - especially the clients can access easily; and to be the professionals who are able to effectively manage drug system. Conclusions: Pharmacists are valued professional experts in medical information and as important members of the holistic health care team. However, values of pharmacists couldn’t be separate clearly because those values - including profession value and ethic value - were integrated or added in intra-professional value and inter-professional value. Concerning the appreciative roles and the practice roles of pharmacists, most of stakeholders (apart from pharmacists) valued the pharmacists’ roles but not so strongly. Additionally, those stakeholders expected pharmacists to actually have access to clients, to assign and allocate the medication use policy particularly for community and society. The most important findings are the three main components of the process of pharmacists’ value creation, as described above. The pharmacy profession should realize and grow into the pharmacy profession spiritual.