Hospital pharmacy
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The documentation of clinical pharmacy activities is an important issue and the authors describe a relatively simple and easily implemented method of documenting concurrent clinical pharmacy interventions. This quality assurance measure was added to the quality assurance calendar of a tertiary care medical center/teaching hospital to: (1) document to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations that the pharmacy department is involved in direct patient care, and (2) demonstrate to hospital administrators that pharmacists are an integral and necessary component of the health care team. At least 115 of 428 (27%) documented interventions during 1988 prevented patients from suffering potentially serious side effects and adverse drug reactions. ⋯ Nurses, pharmacists, and physicians initiated 37%, 33%, and 30% of the clinical interventions, respectively. Most of the physician (89%) and nurse (82%) initiated interventions were requests for drug information, whereas most of the pharmacist initiated interventions were order clarifications (51%). The daily documentation of clinical pharmacy interventions demonstrated that the quality of patient care and patient outcome was improved and served as an effective method of cost-justifying pharmacist positions in this era of fiscal constraints.