Focus and impact of pharmacists' interventions.
All pharmacists' interventions were collected over a two-week period and were assessed for type and impact on patient care and medication costs. A total of 361 interventions were collected with a physician acceptance rate of 95.8 percent. Eighty-two of the 361 interventions were reviewed by seven physicians with 93 percent of those being judged to have had a positive effect on patient outcome, 7 percent were judged to have had no effect, while none reviewed were judged to be detrimental. Life-saving interventions were judged to have occurred in 8.5 percent of interventions, while 90 percent of the interventions were perceived to have resulted in improved quality of care and/or physician education. Cost analysis was performed comparing the difference of total medication costs (drug, pharmacy, nursing and drug assay costs) for a 24 hour period prior to and after the intervention occurred. The cost-avoidance over the two week period was calculated to be $679, representing a conservative estimate of an annual cost-avoidance of $17,654. Costs not evaluated were those avoided due to increased quality of care, decreased adverse drug effects and decreased length of hospital stay. Pharmacists' interventions which represent only a portion of a pharmacist's responsibilities, improve the quality of patient care and result in cost avoidance.
Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, Ontario.
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Strong
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Tsang
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002648:Child; D017046:Cost Savings / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D016527:Drug Costs / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004358:Drug Therapy / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006746:Hospital Bed Capacity, 500 and over; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric / Q000458:organization & administration; D006785:Hospitals, University / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D009864:Ontario; D010043:Outcome and Process Assessment, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D010348:Patient Care Team; D010607:Pharmacy Service, Hospital / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians' / Q000191:economics / Q000592:standards*; D015397:Program Evaluation