How useful are clinical pharmacists in postsurgical floors?
04 Mar 2022
Clinical pharmacists ought to receive their well-deserved specialist status, and be recognised as an asset to the healthcare team.Having a clinical pharmacist dedicated to the postsurgical patient population improves use of antimicrobial and anticoagulant agents, enhances outcomes through medication education, and boosts provider satisfactions, a study has shown.
A team of investigators aimed to quantify the number and type of clinical pharmacist interventions and examine their impact on patient care in a postsurgical nonintensive care patient population. In the study, a clinical pharmacist provided care for two postsurgical floors for 2 weeks and collected data on the number and type of interventions made and adverse events avoided.
The investigators also carried out an anonymous survey among the multidisciplinary team who collaborated with the pharmacist at the end of the trial period. This was done to understand the perception of having access to a clinical pharmacist who was assigned to their floor.
Over 2 weeks, the clinical pharmacist performed a total of 218 interventions, including 38 recommendations for antimicrobial optimization, 26 recommendations for anticoagulation optimization, and education provision for 20 patients planned for discharge on high-risk medications.
Pharmacist-led interventions led to a reduction in adverse events, improvement in patient safety and knowledge, and potential readmissions decrease, and shorter hospital length of stay.
Based on the survey results, all participants (100 percent) strongly agreed that a clinical pharmacist should be a member of the multidisciplinary team for the postsurgical floors.
“Studies have shown that pharmacists are able to improve the quality of patient care,” the investigators said.