Study of Outreach-based clinical pharmacist prescription in the healthcare of people experiencing homelessness
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Abstract
Members of the homeless population who are severely and multiply disadvantaged are disproportionately susceptible to very high rates of multi-morbidity and early mortality. In response to widespread calls for the development of interventions to improve healthcare access and effectiveness for this population, this study examined the perspectives of patients and other stakeholders regarding an outreach service provided by prescribing pharmacists in collaboration with a local voluntary sector provider, within homelessness services and on the streets of Glasgow (UK). The qualitative study comprised semi-structured face-to-face interviews with 40 intentionally selected individuals who had current or recent experiences of homelessness (32 with direct service experience and 8 without), all (n = 4) staff engaged in frontline service delivery, and 10 representatives from stakeholder agencies collaborating with the service and/or serving the same client demographic. Systematic topic and framework analysis was used to look at verbatim interview transcriptions that had been anonymized. The program was good at discovering cases and getting in touch with patients who didn't want to use or couldn't physically go to existing (mainstream or specialty "homeless") healthcare services. It helped patients get around a lot of the problems that homeless people often have when they try to get medical treatment. It also allowed for quick diagnosis and prescription of medicine, and it took advantage of times when patients were motivated to take care of their health requirements. There were also reports of better health results, such as better adherence to medicines. An informal, flexible, holistic, and person-centered outreach service that is offered in homelessness service settings and on the street can help people who are homeless get to both primary and secondary healthcare. This is important because these people would otherwise "fall through the gaps" of provision. Adding input from prescribing pharmacists and third-sector organizations to healthcare for this vulnerable group enables for quick treatment and/or prescription of a wide variety of diseases and has a lot of promise to improve health outcomes.
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.



