Hospital pharmacists manage every area of medicine use in hospitals, from procurement, dispensing, preparation, delivery, administration, and monitoring to surveillance. 1-3) A prominent aspect of the pharmacist's multifaceted role is their pivotal responsibility as credible guardians against medication-related harm. The International Pharmaceutical Federation directs that hospital pharmacists should establish a pharmacovigilance and reporting system for medication errors, including near misses. 2)The Korean Patient Safety Act (Act no. 13113, January. 28. 2015) categorized pharmacists as personnel with exclusive rights over actions related to patient safety and medical service quality improvement. 4) Thus, in the area of patient safety, the weight of the pharmacists` role is becoming more important.Typical patient safety for a pharmacist involves patient education, multidisciplinary teamwork, medication assessment,

BackgroundInjectable medication errors primarily occur during preparation and administration. Currently, South Korea is experiencing chronic pharmacist shortages. Moreover, pharmacists have not routinely conducted prescription monitoring for intravenous compatibility. In the present study, we analysed the implementation of a pre-issue monitoring program using recently released cloud-based software to provide information on intravenous compatibility in the pharmacy at a general hospital in South Korea.ObjectivesThe aims of this study were to determine whether adding an intravenous drug prescription review to pharmacists’ actual work scope could promote patient safety, and to assess the impact of this new task on pharmacists’ workload.MethodsData on intravenous drugs prescribed in the intensive care unit and haematology-oncology ward were prospectively collected during January 2020. Four quantitative items were evaluated: the run-time, intervention ratio, acceptance ratio, and the information completeness ratio with regard to the compatibility of intravenous drugs.ResultsThe mean run-time of two pharmacists was 18.1 min in the intensive care unit and 8.7 min in the haematology-oncology ward (p<0.001). Significant differences were also found between the intensive care unit and the haematology-oncology wards in terms of the mean intervention ratio (25.3% vs 5.3%, respectively; p<0.001) and the information completeness ratio (38.3% vs 34.0%, respectively; p=0.007). However, the mean acceptance ratio was comparable (90.4% in the intensive care unit and 100% in the haematology-oncology ward; p=0.239). The intravenous pairs that most frequently triggered interventions were tazobactam/piperacillin and famotidine in the intensive care unit, and vincristine and sodium bicarbonate in the haematology-oncology ward.ConclusionThis study suggests that despite a shortage of pharmacists, intravenous compatibility can be monitored before issuing injectable products in all wards. Because the prescribing pattern of injections varies across wards, pharmacists’ tasks should be established accordingly. To improve the completeness of information, efforts to generate more evidence should continue.