Sherif Hanafy Mahmoud - Patient Assessment in Clinical Pharmacy: A Comprehensive Guide

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The educational training and the role of pharmacists as medication expert healthcare professionals for patient-centered care in the twenty-first century require comprehensive patient assessment. One of the most important skill sets a pharmacist will use in clinical practice is patient assessment. An important aspect of pharmacy practice is effective communication and taking both clinical and scientific information and translating that for patients. Pharmacists work both independently and in teams, and they are professionals who effectively communicate and have a passion for enquiry and seek to understand patients holistically. Canadian pharmacists are some of the greatest luminaries and innovators in the pharmacy profession, and the practice of pharmacy in Alberta has often led the way.

Overall, this guidebook is a reference for pharmacist practice designed for and by pharmacists to augment existing knowledge and skills and to optimize practice and is a welcomed addition to a paucity of focused literature on this subject. This textbook is intended to fill the significant educational apertures in patient assessment that are contemporarily required by pharmacists and educators to provide primary care patient-centered pharmacy services. This textbook further reflects current Canadian pharmacy practice guidelines where applicable and extends them where necessary and prudent. This is a seminal Canadian-authored reference patient assessment book that is intended for a global audience. The potential of this guide to be adopted by pharmacy schools and pharmacists as well as other healthcare professionals is indicative of its quality and the caliber of the pharmacy practitioners and academics in Alberta and throughout Canada and their erudite insights into medication expertise for patient-centered care.

Pharmacists role as healthcare practitioners is evolving as they are taking a more active part in primary patient care. Clinical services are now becoming the forefront of pharmacy practice as pharmacists are helping patients manage their medications and diseases, providing patient education and, in some jurisdictions, prescribing and adapting medications. As medication experts, pharmacists interventions in patients care have been shown to improve patient outcomes and reduce healthcare costs in various practice settings. In order to perform their day-to-day duties, pharmacists need a framework to guide care for their patients. This framework is called the patient care process, and it involves three main steps: patient assessment, care plan development, and implementation and monitoring and follow-up. An essential part of the patient care process in addressing patient concerns is complete patient assessment. Patient assessment skills apply to all pharmacy practice settings, including community, hospital, and specialized pharmacy practice. The importance of patient assessment skills together with the scarcity of resources in this topic initiated the idea of this book. The aim of this book is to provide a comprehensive discussion of patient assessment for clinical pharmacists. It is organized into four parts. Part I includes introductory chapters regarding the basics of patient assessment and components of the patient care process. Part II includes a detailed assessment of common symptoms encountered by pharmacists in their practice. Part III discusses assessment of patients with various chronic illnesses. This is followed by Part IV, which addresses select specialized topics and assessment considerations of interest to pharmacists such as pharmacokinetic assessment, critical illness assessment, and assessment considerations in older adults and pediatric patients. This book targets all pharmacists, regardless of their practice setting, and pharmacy students, serving as a valuable tool and resource in their daily practice.