Jeroen van de Pol

35 Pharmacy in transition: A work sampling study of community pharmacists using smartphone technology 2 The time (15.7%) that pharmacists spend on the dispensing process may be due to understaffing that is the result of reduced remuneration in community pharmacy. In the Dutch community pharmacy setting, dispensing has always been viewed as a typical task of the pharmacy technician, not the pharmacist. Thus, understaffing may have caused pharmacists to perform activities that could be delegated to technicians or support staff such as dispensing, managing finance (6.1%) and logistics (5.0%). Here again, the lack of remuneration may indirectly prevent pharmacists from devoting more time to CPS [22]. The administrative red tape required for reimbursement for the increasing number of (expensive) drugs and medical devices is time consuming and of very limited added value to society. Not only pharmacists but also other healthcare professionals report a high administrative workload that limits their ability to provide care-related services and directly impedes job satisfaction [27-30]. Though rest is a non-professional activity, its importance should not be underestimated. Too little rest carries the risk that the pharmacist makes medication errors [14]. In this study, community pharmacists had 45 minutes of rest during an 8-hour working day. This may explain the high burnout rate among Dutch community pharmacists, which is currently 1 in 3 [31]. Dutch and United Kingdom community pharmacy collective working agreements state that community pharmacists should have a 20- and 30-minute rest break every 6 hours (respectively 5.6–8.3%). Work-sampling studies in community pharmacy are sparse, whichmakes it difficult to compare results, especially because pharmacists’ tasks and responsibilities may differ nationally [12]. A review from 1996 reported that pharmacists spend between 17.6% and 46.9% of their time on professional activities [12]. Two more recent work-sampling studies from Northern Ireland performed in 1999 and 2009 also showed that pharmacists spend roughly half of their time on professional activities [13,17]. Little seems to have changed between 1999 and 2009. These studies also showed that pharmacists spend most of their time on dispensing. These results suggest that the barriers that community pharmacists face in their transition to CPS are universal. More needs to be learned about these barriers – they could be financial (lack of remuneration) or professional (perceived importance of both traditional activities and CPS) [22,26]. More insight is needed into how to reform community pharmacy practice to prepare it for future demands and overcome obstacles in the process. Community pharmacists need to profile themselves as pharmaceutical experts.