General Practitioners-CommunityPharmacists practice groups: Analysis of the potentialities and limits of this practice through its implementation in several European countries

Practice groups involving general practitioners and community pharmacists have been developed in several European countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland) since the 1980s. Each country has implemented this practice using a different model with similarities but also specificities. Each model has encountered different dynamics during its implementation thanks to a significant and even growing participation of professionals in the Netherlands and Switzerland and, to a lesser extent, in Belgium. According to the research that has studied the implementation of these models, the potential of this practice is important in terms of improving the quality of drug prescription and in its cost effectiveness and better collaboration between physicians and pharmacists. However, the parameters associated to individual professionals' practices and to the healthcare system concerned may have influenced the implementation of this practice in these different countries. A generalization of this practice to other countries with similar challenges is appropriate but different considerations linked to the individual practices of professionals and healthcare systems must be analyzed before large-scale implementation is possible.