American journal of hospital pharmacy
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An adverse drug reaction (ADR)-reporting program involving detection of charted ADRs by quality assurance nurses and data collection and causality assessment by staff pharmacists is described. The voluntary ADR-reporting mechanism used in a 900-bed, university-based hospital complex produced less than one ADR report per month. The newly implemented system depends on nurses to detect and report documented ADRs through concurrent chart review. ⋯ Discrepancies in scoring are evaluated to determine whether a change in the system is necessary. An FDA report is generated if the staff pharmacist assessor and the drug information center assessor obtain results of "probable" for both algorithms. An ADR-reporting program that relies on quality assurance nurses to detect charted ADRs and on staff pharmacists to evaluate reported ADRs increased the average number of ADRs reported from 0.4 to 20 per month.