New approaches to increasing the value of drug prescription by the means of systematic integration of professional communication, standardization of pharmaceutical care and drug behavior
Authors:   The Danylo Halytsky National Medical University in Lviv, Zimenkovsky A.B. , Sekh M.Ya. ,   The Danylo Halytsky National Medical University in Lviv
Published: March 2021

The aim of the study was to find new approaches to increase the value of drug prescription by the means of systematic integration of professional communication, standardization of pharmaceutical care and drug behavior of physicians, pharmacists and patients to improve the quality of pharmacotherapy in Ukraine. Materials and Methods. Objects of the study: a set of relevant terms and their interpretations concerning "prescription" (n = 23); the evolution of the interpretation of the term "prescription" in a historical perspective; prognostic model of drug communication of the participants of the medication process; electronic prescription and the prospects of its use. Bibliosemantic comparative studies in the format of "pharmaceutical care vs. prescription", "medical standard vs. prescription" were conducted. Methods used: bibliosemantic, bibliographic, historical, analytical and methods of systematization and comparison. Results and Discussion. The results of the comparative bibliosemantic study concerning the interpretations of the definition of "prescription" allowed us to substantiate the claim that the latter can be considered one of the key elements of professional communication between participants of the medication process. The results of the analysis of common and distinctive features in the interpretation of the definitions of pharmaceutical care and prescription showed that it is feasible to regard it as a form of pharmaceutical care, and therefore it is one of its first and basic standards, moreover, a documented one. Such written messages of pharmaceutical care can likely be important tools to influence the drug behavior of all participants of pharmacotherapy. According to the results of the bibliosemantic search for common features in the interpretations of the definitions of "prescription" and "standard", it is established that both terms have numerous common characteristics, which allow us to claim that prescription can be regarded as a certain standard of action given by a physician to a particular patient. Therefore, a drug prescription can be considered the standard of appropriate medical behavior of the patient. A model of professional communication of the key participants in the medication process with the help of a prescription is proposed. Written information (on the requirements for the release of the finished medicinal product) or certain pharmaceutical care (in the case of indicating the composition and instructions for the manufacture of the drug) is transferred from the clinician to the pharmaceutical worker. The physician provides the patient with pharmaceutical care and a standard of proper medical behavior. The pharmacist provides the patient with verbal pharmaceutical care according to the prescription. In case of absence of prescription, the main connecting mechanism of drug communication of the pharmacotherapy participants in particular and the medication process in general is lost, in our opinion. For the first time a prescription-centric model of drug communication of key participants in the medication process was developed. Conclusions. 1. According to the results of the study, new approaches to increase the value of drug prescription by the means of systematic integration of professional communication, standardization of pharmaceutical care and drug behavior of physicians, pharmacists and patients to improve the quality of pharmacotherapy in Ukraine are proposed. At the same time, the results of a comparative bibliosemantic study of interpretations of the definition of "prescription" allowed us to substantiate the claim that the latter can be considered one of the key elements of professional communication between the participants of the medication process (physician, pharmacist and patient) and an important tool for influencing patient behavior. 2. The results of the comparative analysis of common and distinctive features in the interpretation of the definitions of "pharmaceutical care" and "prescription" made it possible to claim that a prescription can be regarded as a certain form of pharmaceutical care. Such written messages can likely be important tools to influence the drug behavior of all participants of pharmacotherapy. 3. The results of the bibliosemantic search for common features in the interpretation of the definitions "prescription" and "standard" showed the presence of numerous common characteristics that suggest that the prescription can be regarded as a certain standard of action provided by a physician to a particular patient according to a significant clinical situation and can be considered the standard of appropriate medical behavior of the patient. 4. The use of e-prescriptions, in our opinion, opens new perspectives for assessing the drug behavior of patients, and can become a powerful lever in its management, which requires, accordingly, further research Key words: drug behavior, e-prescription, model of drug communication, pharmaceutical care, prescription, standard