Present-day approaches to pharmacotherapy - pharmaceutical care or drug management?

Optimization of pharmacotherapy has been traditionally contributed to by the physician, and in the concept of clinical pharmacy also by the pharmacist. As to the decision-making about pharmacotherapy, the idea of pharmaceutical care includes also the patient and as to the drug therapy management also the payer of the provided health care (health insurance companies). The terms pharmaceutical care and drug management are very close to each other but not identical, though they are often used as synonyms in the professional literature. The paper attempts to point out both the identical and different features of both concepts, the competence of individual categories of health workers in their execution, and the links to other terms used, such as the treatment of disease and the management of disease. It also points out to the differences in the understanding of these concepts in the European region and in the United States of America. It can be deduced from the found relationship between pharmaceutical care and drug therapy management that the concept of drug therapy management is superior to the concept of pharmaceutical care. It is desirable that both concepts blend with each other in some elements: the social viewpoint and the perspective of the patient should be added to pharmaceutical care and to the concept of drug management, respectively. Drug therapy management can be considered the strategy of how to incorporate the philosophy of pharmaceutical care into the everyday practice of pharmacies.

Keywords: pharmacotherapy; pharmaceutical care; drug management