Measuring the Time Required to Provide Components of Clinical Pharmacy Services

Abstract

Aim:To determine the time spent by pharmacists on components of clinical pharmacy services using chosen recording tools. Method: A 4-week study was conducted at an acute general hospital in early 2006. Pharmacists completed Pharmaceutical Clinical Pathway (PCP) forms and recorded the time needed for its completion. Other activities not associated with completing PCP forms (e.g. medication chart review, clinical review, adverse drug reaction monitoring, therapeutic drug monitoring, provision of drug information) and the time needed to complete these were recorded on Clinical Activity Data Sheets (CADS). Finally, pharmacists recorded their interventions (and the time involved) directly into the Riskman database. Results: 204 PCP forms were completed. Pharmacists completed the medication history component of the PCP form and recorded the time in 92% of completed forms. The most commonly recorded time for this component of the PCP form was 6 to 10 minutes. There were 418 CADS completed with the most recorded activities being clinical review (355 occasions) and medication chart review (351 occasions). The least recorded activity was adverse drug reaction monitoring (20 occasions). The time for these activities was recorded on more than 97% of CADS completed with mean times ranging from 4.9 minutes (therapeutic drug monitoring) to 6.9 minutes (provision of drug information). 202 interventions were entered into the Riskman database and the time was recorded for 98% of these (mean time 8.8 minutes). Conclusion: The chosen recording tools measured the times required for the provision of a range of activities provided by a clinical pharmacy service. J Pharm Pract Res 2007; 37: 102-7.

Determining Clinical Pharmacy Workload by Patient Disease Classification in Medical and Surgical Patients

“…The recording tools were used as previously, with one modification to the PCP form-the pharmacists recorded the time to complete all details on page 1 of the form in a designated section. 12 This included the time to confirm allergy status, medication history, usual medication administration arrangements and the current location of patients' own medicines. Data recorded on page 2 of the PCP form was not used as we previously found that this information was not recorded consistently.…”

Clinical pharmacy workload in medical and surgical patients: effect of patient partition, disease complexity and Major Disease Category

“…In the Riskman database, pharmacists used designated fields to record the dates and details of each intervention and, when required, the times involved. We earlier described the development and use of these recording tools in detail [12,13] . Subsequent references to clinical pharmacy activity by ward‐based pharmacists in this paper refer to activities measured by these tools only.…”

“…We earlier described the development and use of these recording tools in detail. [12,13] Subsequent references to clinical pharmacy activity by ward-based pharmacists in this paper refer to activities measured by these tools only. It does not refer to other activities that these pharmacists may perform that these tools do not measure, such as formal education sessions provided to other healthcare workers.…”

“…We previously reported the development of recording tools by which to measure the time required to provide components of clinical pharmacy services [12] . We subsequently used these tools to record the time involved to perform these activities for individual patients [13] .…”

“…We previously reported the development of recording tools by which to measure the time required to provide components of clinical pharmacy services. [12] We subsequently used these tools to record the time involved to perform these activities for individual patients. [13] By linking clinical pharmacy workload activities to specific patient episodes, we identified the effect of patient disease presentation on these activities for general medical and surgical patients whose length of stay was up to 5 days.…”