Impact of clinical pharmacists in an inpatient medical oncology service: A prospective study at a comprehensive cancer center in Jordan

Abstract

Introduction Clinical pharmacy is considered an integral discipline in the health care system for optimizing therapy and reducing drug-related problems. The objective of this study was to evaluate the impact of clinical pharmacists in optimizing management in a medical oncology service. Methods A prospective study was conducted at King Hussein Cancer Center between July 2019 and September 2019 of patients admitted to the medical oncology service. The impact of clinical pharmacists was measured by evaluating their interventions, defined as actions that were expected to result in a change in patient management. Data were collected daily by routine review of patients' profiles and by recording clinical pharmacists’ interventions. The data collected were baseline characteristics of patients, numbers and types of clinical pharmacists’ interventions, their significance, medications involved, and rate of acceptance of clinical pharmacists’ interventions by physicians. The significance of each intervention was assessed by two clinical pharmacists on a Hatoum scale. Physicians’ acceptance was assessed by whether the recommendations were implemented. Results During the study period, 748 patients were included, of whom 605 required a total of 1683 clinical interventions. The mean age was 56.3 years (±15.5 SD). Of the interventions, 39% resulted in initiation of a drug and 25% in drug discontinuations. The drug group most commonly associated with clinical pharmacists’ interventions was antibiotics (26.5%). Physicians accepted 98% of the clinical pharmacists’ interventions, and 92.4% of the interventions brought care to a more appropriate level and were considered significant. Conclusion Most patients in the medical oncology service required clinical pharmacists’ interventions, as demonstrated by the high number of significant clinical pharmacists’ interventions. Studies should be conducted to follow up these findings with respect to patient outcomes and cost savings.

Analysis of Hospital Pharmacists’ Interventions in a Covid -19 Isolation Centre of a Tertiary Hospital in Ghana

“…In our study, interventions accepted by the Physicians were 95.45%. This is comparable to other studies done in Europe and America, where acceptance rates varied between 52% and 100% [39] but lower compared to the 98% recorded from other Covid-19 pharmacist-led interventions in Jordan [40].…”

Analysis of Pharmacist Interventions in Adult COVID-19 Patients Admitted to a Tertiary Care Hospital

“… 12 In addition, a prospective study evaluating the impact of clinical pharmacists on an inpatient medical oncology service reported a high acceptance rate by physicians of 98%. 13 …”

Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe (PCNE) Drug-Related Problems Classification Version 9.1: First Implementation in Sudan

“…To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the characteristics of DRP, clinical pharmacist intervention, and status of DRP among admitted cancer patients in a systematic way that reduces the chances of missing any DRP. Thus, improving health outcomes in this subgroup of patients known to have higher chances for DRP due to the complex nature of management by using a combination of chemotherapeutic agents and supportive treatment [13].…”