Impact of clinical pharmacist in an Indian Intensive Care Unit
Mudalipalayam N. Sivakumar, Ganesh Veerasekar
Keywords :
Adverse drug reaction, critical care pharmacist, drug interaction, medication error
Citation Information :
Sivakumar MN, Veerasekar G. Impact of clinical pharmacist in an Indian Intensive Care Unit. Indian J Crit Care Med 2016; 20 (2):78-83.
Background and Objectives: A critically ill patient is treated and reviewed by physicians from different specialties; hence, polypharmacy is a very common. This study was conducted to assess the impact and effectiveness of having a clinical pharmacist in an Indian Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It also evaluates the clinical pharmacist interventions with a focus on optimizing the quality of pharmacotherapy and patient safety.
Materials and Methods: The prospective, observational study was carried out in medical and surgical/trauma ICU over a period of 1 year. All detected drug-related problems and interventions were categorized based on the Pharmaceutical Care Network Europe system.
Results: During the study period, average monthly census of 1032 patients got treated in the ICUs. A total of 986 pharmaceutical interventions due to drug-related problems were documented, whereof medication errors accounted for 42.6% (n = 420), drug of choice problem 15.4% (n = 152), drug-drug interactions were 15.1% (n = 149), Y-site drug incompatibility was 13.7% (n = 135), drug dosing problems were 4.8% (n = 47), drug duplications reported were 4.6% (n = 45), and adverse drug reactions documented were 3.8% (n = 38). Drug dosing adjustment done by the clinical pharmacist included 140 (11.9%) renal dose, 62 (5.2%) hepatic dose, 17 (1.4%) pediatric dose, and 104 (8.8%) insulin dosing modifications. A total of 577 drug and poison information queries were answered by the clinical pharmacist.
Conclusion: Clinical pharmacist as a part of multidisciplinary team in our study was associated with a substantially lower rate of adverse drug event caused by medication errors, drug interactions, and drug incompatibilities.
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