Advancing pharmaceutical care in primary healthcare through real-world evidence and innovation

Primary healthcare systems are increasingly challenged by aging populations, multimorbidity, and growing medication complexity, necessitating more integrated and patient-centered approaches to medication management. Within this evolving landscape, pharmaceutical care has emerged as a key component in optimizing medicine use, improving patient outcomes, and enhancing health system efficiency. Importantly, it is transitioning beyond a product-oriented model of medication supply toward outcomes-driven services that focus on measurable clinical, humanistic, and safety outcomes. Pharmaceutical care has evolved into a holistic, interprofessional framework that integrates clinical evidence with patient behaviors, preferences, and lived experiences. This convergence is essential for understanding how medicines are used in real-life conditions and for optimizing outcomes that matter to patients, including safety, effectiveness, and quality of life. Real-world evidence, i.e., from pharmacoepidemiologic studies and patient-reported outcomes, plays a critical role, yet important gaps remain in linking behavioral insights with clinical data to support scalable and context-sensitive models across primary healthcare.This Research Topic aims to explore how real-world evidence and innovative approaches in applied and clinical pharmacology can advance pharmaceutical care within primary healthcare systems. It seeks to promote the development of structured, outcomes-oriented research frameworks that enable all healthcare providers (i.e., physicians, pharmacists, nurses etc.) as well as other stakeholders, to design, implement, and evaluate pharmaceutical care interventions in routine practice.A central challenge lies in translating findings from controlled research settings into sustainable and scalable models that reflect the complexity of real-world clinical environments, particularly in the context of polypharmacy, chronic disease management, and prevention. At the same time, there is a need to move toward a more convergent and harmonized approach to pharmaceutical care delivery across healthcare professionals, ensuring consistency in principles, methodologies, and patient-centered objectives. This convergence requires strengthening lifelong learning pathways, fostering research capacity, and enhancing academic and interdisciplinary collaboration.To address these challenges, this Research Topic encourages contributions that leverage real-world data, pharmacoepidemiologic methods, and advanced analytical tools to evaluate effectiveness, safety, and patient-centered outcomes. Particular emphasis will be placed on studies incorporating patient-reported outcomes, health-related quality of life, and capacity-building initiatives, as well as digital health solutions, artificial intelligence, and implementation strategies that support the translation of evidence into practice and policy.This Research Topic welcomes submissions that examine pharmaceutical care as a multidimensional and interdisciplinary field within primary healthcare, with a focus on outcomes-driven services and collaborative practice models. Contributions may address, but are not limited to: development and evaluation of pharmaceutical care tools and interventions; integration of behavioral and clinical data in medication management; pharmacoepidemiologic studies using real-world evidence to assess effectiveness and safety; management of polypharmacy and drug–drug interactions; multidisciplinary and convergent care approaches across healthcare providers; patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life; digital health applications and artificial intelligence; and capacity-building initiatives, including lifelong learning and academic collaboration.We encourage a wide range of manuscript types, including Original Research, Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Brief Research Reports, and Perspective or Policy articles. Studies employing real-world data, pragmatic designs, and implementation science approaches are particularly welcome. Submissions should aim to generate actionable insights that support the sustainable integration and harmonization of pharmaceutical care in routine primary healthcare practice. Topic editors: Marios Spanakis, EMMANOUIL SYMVOULAKIS, Hans De Loof Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81106/advancing-pharmaceutical-care-in-primary-healthcare-through-real-world-evidence-and-innovation