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VKA patient counseling by French retail's pharmacists: healthcare outcomes Volume 33, issue 2, Juin 2014

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Author
Pharmacie du Rouret, Place du Collet, Le Rouret, France
* Tirés à part

Our French health authorities have to deal with a big issue: 6.000 deaths per year are caused by anticoagulants VKA (vitamin K antagonist) side effects such as bleeding and thromboembolic complications (compared to 3.000 deads on roads in 2013). Hence, French retails’ pharmacists driven by health authorities are involved in a large national initiative. Indeed, for the first time, they have to organize structured pharmaceutical interviews, with planned objectives and honorarium, recruiting patients under anticoagulants among their patient population. This challenge is underlined by massive prescriptions of new anticoagulants (NACO) requiring greater attention regarding side effects and close follow-up of renal function. Currently, first reports are very positive. Many pharmacists led these pharmaceutical interviews. Respectively, interest and informations acquired by enrolled patients (following therapeutic education's rules), relationships with both physicians, nurses and biologists, strongly reinforce networking and raise the opportunity for disease management improvement in public health. From an healthcare system point of view, skills and retails pharmacists’ organization can provide a new way to prevent patients’ bleeding risks and demonstrate how confident they can be regarding interactions between patients and healthcare professionals network. Such collaborative work improve quality of care, patient satisfaction and finally, healthcare outcomes.