THIS week's contribution is from Centaine Snoswell, Pharmacist, PhD Candidate, University of Queensland - Both community and hospital pharmacy are experiencing budgetary constraints.
At the same time, pharmacists are striving to innovate, diversify practice, and deliver new services. The best way to generate evidence for a new service is to plan your justification from the beginning.
Research principles can help.
As a researcher you want to measure the impact of an intervention, answering the question "What impact did this intervention have?"
Impact should be measured by identifying the measurable outcomes from your new service; whether that's reducing readmissions to your ward, or increasing your intervention claims in community.
Identify a measurable outcome that can be collected before implementation (your baseline), and during your service trial.
The aim is not just to show that your service was good (measurable outcome), but that it made a difference (compared to baseline).
If you trial a service and there is no difference from baseline (which can be statistically tested) then either it was ineffective, or you should reconsider the measurable outcome you selected.
Having an idea is no longer enough to create change. When the budget is tight, you need to be able to show that your new service will have a measurable impact.
The above article was sent to subscribers in Pharmacy Daily's issue from 07 May 18
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