Cognitive services in community pharmacy practice - a local perspective

Abstract

Cognitive services are those services that a pharmacist can provide to or for a patient or health care professional that are either judgmental or educational in nature, rather than technical or informational (Cognitive Services Working Group, 1989). Examples are monitoring patients' drug therapy, even by assessing and interpreting clinical parameters, patient counselling, education and screening for disease. Cognitive services reflect a professional evaluation from a product-oriented to a more patient-oriented approach. They are a natural consequence of the clinical pharmacy movement predominant since the mid-sixties. Providing cognitive services entails having pharmacists working in a team with other health care providers.