Pharmacist Recommendations Reduce Medication-Related Harm

Pharmacist interventions effectively reduced medication-related harm in multidisciplinary outpatient clinics, according to findings published online in the Journal of Internal Medicine.

Researchers conducted a retrospective observational study in a large quaternary hospital in Australia. They audited medical records for outpatient consults that took place between June 2019 and February 2020.

Consults were conducted by 46 pharmacists across 18 clinical roles in multiple disciplines. Of 7599 consults that involved a medication-related problem, a purposeful random sample of 572 were audited, involving 552 unique patients.

Pharmacist recommendations were classified as “resolved” if they were implemented by the patient or clinician, and the risk of medication-related harm was assessed using a validated tool. Within the sample, 399 recommendations were recorded, of which 328 were resolved, 269 were low- or moderate-risk, and 59 were high-risk.

“Clinic pharmacists in multidisciplinary outpatient clinics are effective at identifying and resolving medication-related problems,” study authors wrote. “Our research demonstrated that 18% of these resolved recommendations prevented a high-risk medication-related harm event.”

Researchers noted that “pharmacists are relatively new to outpatient clinic settings in Australia,” and evidence of clinical effectiveness in these settings was limited prior to the study.

Reference:
Snoswell CL, De Guzman K, Barras M. Pharmacists reducing medication risk in medical outpatient clinics: A retrospective study of 18 clinics [published online ahead of print September 6, 2021]. Intern Med J. 2021 Sep 6. doi: 10.1111/imj.15504