ABSTRACT

Collaborative drug therapy management (CDTM) describes an approach to care in which drug therapy management and decision making are coordinated collaboratively by pharmacists, physicians and other healthcare professionals, and the patient. When participating in CDTM, pharmacists share the responsibility for patient outcomes, not just by providing the basic dispensing functions and drug information services but by solving patient and medication-related problems and by making decisions regarding drug prescribing, monitoring, and regimen adjustments.1 CDTM allows pharmacists to move beyond the identification of drug-related problems to providing solution to those problems. A growing body of literature has provided evidence of cost savings, decreased deaths, and decreased hospitalizations with pharmacists’clinical services, especially in environments where CDTM is practiced.2