Analysis of Inpatient Hospice Pharmacist Interventions Within a Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Analysis of Inpatient Hospice Pharmacist Interventions Within a Veterans Affairs Medical Center. J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother. 2018 Dec;32(4):240-247 Authors: Basri DS, DiScala SL, Brooks AT, Vartan CM, Silverman MA, Quellhorst J Abstract Clinical pharmacy interventions have been shown to improve medication therapy, prevent undesirable side effects, and improve patients' clinical outcomes in a number of settings; however, limited data exist to characterize clinical pharmacy specialist (CPS) providers' interventions in an inpatient hospice Veteran Affairs (VA) setting. The primary objective of this quality improvement (QI) project was to quantify the number and types of pharmacy interventions implemented from the Pharmacists Achieve Results with Medications Documentation (PhARMD) tool for inpatient hospice patient encounters in a VA medical center. A total of 453 interventions during 185 patient care encounters were documented by CPS providers between September 1, 2016, and December 31, 2016. These interventions were documented across 32 unique patients, with an average of 14.2 interventions made per patient during this period. CPS providers frequently intervened to optimize pharmacotherapy for the treatment of pain (42.38%), terminal agitation (5.08%), and nausea (3.97%). Additionally, CPS providers played a significant role in the deprescribing of medication by discontinuing drugs no longer indicated (18.3%). These results subst...
Source: Journal of Pain and Palliative Care Pharmacotherapy - Category: Palliative Care Tags: J Pain Palliat Care Pharmacother Source Type: research