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Evaluation of the Contribution of Clinical Pharmacists: Inpatient Care and Cost Reduction

Clinical pharmacists in this study hospital reported 1027 interventions in patient drug therapy over two time periods of three and two weeks, respectively. These interventions were subjected to self and peer reviews and to cost-avoidance evaluation. The most frequent type of intervention was recommendations related to drug selection (29.6 percent). Recommendations were not implemented by physicians in only 10.2 percent of the cases. The perceived impact of these interventions on the quality, cost, or both was found by the peer reviewers to occur in 58.5, 16.1, and 25.6 percent of the cases, respectively. Also, when peer reviewed for clinical significance, 983 of these interventions were judged to improve drug therapy to an acceptable level based on the professional literature, and 36 were deemed very significant in terms of saving patients' lives or preserving major organ functions. Of the 983 interventions rendering drug therapy to an appropriate level, 398 were deemed to have cost-avoidance impact; of this number a 25 percent random sample was subjected to cost-avoidance evaluation. Realized cost-avoidance averaged $242 for each intervention implemented. When extrapolated annually, $364 900 was the net realized cost-avoidance after discounting for the cost of providing clinical pharmacy services. An average cost-avoidance of $860.50 was calculated for each intervention made by pharmacists, but not followed by physicians, for an annual potential cost-avoidance of $532 650. In all, clinical pharmacists had the potential to save $897 550 annually in hospital resources if all their interventions had been accepted and implemented.