A benchmarking scoping review of research output from hospital pharmacy departments in Australia

Abstract

Aim To benchmark annual research output from hospital pharmacy departments in Australian principal referral hospitals. Data sources Embase, Medline, and Scopus. Study selection All 29 principal referral hospitals listed by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare were searched using the institution field from 2018–2020. Articles were included if an author was affiliated with a hospital pharmacy department. Conference abstracts, letters, narrative reviews, opinions, commentaries, or editorials were excluded. Results A total of 261 research articles were identified from 27 principal referral hospital pharmacy departments from 2018–2020. Median research output over 3 years was five (interquartile range, 3–9) articles. In terms of annual research, hospital pharmacy departments in the 50th and 90th percentile for total publication output published two and ten original research articles every year, respectively. Overall, 56% (n = 145) of the published studies were observational, 35% (n = 90) had a first author with a pharmacy department affiliation, 97% (n = 252) had at least one author with a university affiliation, and in 5% (n = 12) of the articles there was more than one hospital pharmacy department affiliation. Conclusion On average, hospital pharmacy departments in Australian principal referral hospitals publish two original research articles every year. Nearly all of these articles are published in collaborations with universities.

Scoping research output from tertiary hospital pharmacy departments: suggestions for improvement

“…2 Although this is a scoping review, the hospital landscape is rapidly evolving, and we would caution against using reports that are likely to be outdated for the purposes of benchmarking. FSH pharmacy research output was not included in the scoping review, 1 suggesting that a second source was not utilised to validate the principal referral hospitals which were operational during the 2018-2020 time period.…”

“…We read with great interest the benchmarking scoping review by Penm et al 1 on research output from principal referral hospital pharmacy departments in Australia from 2018 to 2020. This review allows departments to compare their research output with others and encourages a strong research culture within hospital pharmacy departments.…”

In response: A benchmarking scoping review of research output from hospital pharmacy departments in Australia

“…A limitation of the benchmarking study noted by its authors was that the search strategy would not have captured research articles where authors used the name of their local health network instead of the principal hospital in their affiliation. 1 We are concerned that this may have led to a significant under-estimation of pharmacy research output. This is especially likely in Victoria, where each of the principal referral hospitals is part of a health network with one pharmacy department operating across all hospitals in the network.…”

“…New South Wales has 11, while Australian Capital Territory, Northern Territory, and Tasmania each have one). Standardising the data in Table 3 of Penm et al 1 according to the number of principal referral hospitals or beds in that state would also facilitate valid state comparisons.…”

Response from Authors: a benchmarking scoping review of research output from hospital pharmacy departments in Australia

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To the Editor, We thank Elliott et al 1 and Misko et al 2 for their feedback on our recent scoping review. 3 They both provided valuable feedback for future benchmarking studies. We acknowledge that these limitations may impact state or territory-based benchmarking but reinforce that the national benchmarking offered by our paper appears useful for such sites to compare against.

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