Authors (including presenting author) :
Mak Raymond WM(1), Lau Agnes PW(1), Leung Natalie YY(2), Wong Angie HY(1), Lam Brian TC(1), Chui William CM(1), Chan WM(2)
Affiliation :
(1)Department of Pharmacy, QMH (2)Adult Intensive Care Unit, QMH
Introduction :
The QMH AICU provides tertiary, and quaternary critical care services to support a wide range of specialties including organ and bone marrow transplants, cardiothoracic surgery, burns, and plastic & reconstructive surgery. Patients under care are therefore often complicated in terms of intensive medical and pharmaceutical care required This study aims to assess the impact a clinical pharmacy service has on patient care.
Objectives :
1)To evaluate the impact of Clinical Pharmacists on medication safety and quality on AICU 2)To evaluate the clinical significance of Clinical Pharmacist’s intervention in AICU 3)To assess the clinical utility of a rating scale on the significance of clinical intervention
Methodology :
A retrospective review was conducted on Clinical Pharmacist’s intervention over a 12 months’ period. Patients admitted to AICU of QMH from 1st December 2018 to 30th November 2019 were included if during their stay pharmacist had offered advice or intervention on their pharmacotherapy. A log sheet was kept on the clinical interventions made and whether they were accepted by clinicians. A rating scale for the clinical significance of pharmacist’s intervention was developed between the AICU pharmacist and clinician of AICU. Primary outcomes included the number of interventions made, the acceptance rate of interventions by clinicians and the level of clinical significance rated by a pharmacist and an AICU clinician not directly involved with the clinical interventions. Secondary outcome included the level of correlation of significance ratings between the two independent raters.
Result & Outcome :
A total of 196 interventions, on average at least one intervention per working day, were made by Clinical Pharmacist during the year with an acceptance rate of 95.9%. Of the interventions made, the clinician and pharmacist rated 86.7% vs 94.7% as clinically significant, 13.3% vs 4.8% as moderately significant, and zero vs 0.5% as minimally significant, respectively. The results clearly indicated the positive impact clinical pharmacy service has on enhancing the safety and quality of patient care on AICU. The availability of a regular Clinical Pharmacist on AICU not only would help to avert many medication-related problems, it would help to reduce associated patient consequences, and saves clinicians time via provision of information and advice.
