Risk Screening and Educating of Pharmacy Network in Khon Kaen as a Part of Stroke Fast Track Service

Background: “Stroke Fast Track” is a service that aims to save acute stroke patients. The service is based on the concept that the acute ischemic stroke patient must be treated with rt-PA within 270 minutes. The pharmacist and pharmacy play an important role in education of stroke, risk screening and behavior change. Materials and Methods: The present study focused on collecting past data of patients from service of 7 pharmacies in the Khon Kaen Pharmacy Network from January 15 to April 1, 2016 and categorized into 3 types: educating, risk screening, and pharmacist role. Results: Educating data were collected from 242 participants. Out of a total score of 16, pre- and post-education scores were 10.79+3.81 and 15.83+0.49 (p<0.05), respectively. The number of service users who had heard of the phrase “Stroke Fast Track” increased from 2.54% to 100% (p<0.05), understanding of the signs of stroke increased from 21.14 to 100 (p<0.05). Risk screening data were collected from 318 service users. The majority of 72.64 percent, was at medium risk (1 to 6 points). The risks found in the present study were 54.7 percent of the service users had an oversized waist circumference and body mass index and 32.7 percent had high blood pressure (over 140/90 mmHg). In role of pharmacist, the results indicated that 100 percent of pharmacists educated participants about “Stroke Fast Track” and gave advice on behavior change to the service users. Conclusion: Pharmacy Network can enhance knowledge about strokes, screen risk, and advice people on behavior change. It definitely leads to stroke risk reduction in the future. The linkage of this project to the national health system will have a clear benefit in helping people access “Stroke Fast Track”. Keywords: Risk screening, Stroke, Pharmacy, Community pharmacy