Comprehensive Medication Management is the standard of care that ensures each patient’s medications (whether they are prescription, nonprescription, alternative, traditional, vitamins or nutritional supplements) are individually assessed to determine the medication is appropriate, effective for the medical condition, safe given the comorbidities and other medications being taken, and the patient is able and willing to take the medicine as intended. This excludes medication therapy management (MTM) services such as Part D MTM services, travel clinic, health screenings, etc.

The CMM model rests on the principles of the Chronic Care Model and ensures access to high quality, team-cased care to improve the health of people with chronic illness. Pharmacists can improve health outcomes for high-risk patients while decreasing health care costs by providing CMM to their patients. Value based payment models can be employed to fund and incentive these expanded functions of pharmacists.

The CRMC provides consultation and training services on the individual and organization levels to prepare high performing community pharmacies to deliver CMM to targeted patient populations with severe chronic diseases. Training services include certification courses for clinical pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

A web-based data platform is used to standardize documentation within the CRMC network and will build a prospective data set for robust analyses. Both aggregate and individual reports on clinical measures are generated regularly and fed back to the pharmacies for continual monitoring and evaluation. Healthcare quality measures approved by the National Quality Forum are used as metrics for quality improvement.

Collaborative Practice Agreements (CPA) established between pharmacies and primary care providers grant clinical pharmacists autonomy to deliver CMM services effectively. CRMC coordinates efforts between pharmacies and primary care providers or health systems to draft CPAs.

CRCM continually engages senior decision makers within health plans and medical systems to expand the scale and reach of the collaborative throughout the state and beyond.