• Timothy Reilly, David Barile, and Stanley Reuben.
• Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, New Jersey, USA.
• Am J Geriatr Pharmacother. 2012 Apr 1; 10 (2): 95-100.

BackgroundThe prevalence of prescription medication use increases with age, and older adults are at increased risk of harm from medication use.ObjectiveTo describe the role of a pharmacist on a General Medicine Acute Care of the Elderly (GM-ACE) Unit.MethodsA job description was prepared, and a clinical pharmacist specializing in internal medicine was re-assigned to participate in multidisciplinary rounds on the ACE unit twice weekly and to work with a unit-based pharmacist assigned to multiple units. The clinical pharmacist also provided formal education on geriatric pharmacotherapy for other health care providers. Interventions were defined as changes in the medical record and provision of drug information. Interventions were tracked with an existing form and sorted by category. Data on interventions were presented to the pharmacy and therapeutics committee routinely.ResultsAfter 3 months, the clinical pharmacist accomplished 76 interventions in the areas of agent selection, dose optimization, addition of therapy, deletion of therapy, medication reconciliation, intravenous to oral conversion, technology improvements, and drug information/patient education.ConclusionExpanding the role of the pharmacist in a GM-ACE unit has improved the medication use process in a high-risk population through improvements in medication overuse, medication underuse, dosing, medication reconciliation, patient education, and health care provider education.Copyright © 2012 Elsevier HS Journals, Inc. All rights reserved.

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