1066: PHARMACY COST AVOIDANCE BY REVIEW OF MEDICAL INTERVENTIONS IN A RESIDENCY PROGRAM: PHARM-RES STUDY

Abstract

Introduction: Clinical pharmacists play an active role in the interdisciplinary team, such as renally dose adjusting medications and providing antibiotic recommendations, which has a significant impact on patient care. Little is known about the benefit of having pharmacy residents on an independent on-call experience. Pharmacy residents, as extensions of clinical pharmacists, residents at a large academic medical center participate within the multidisciplinary team in the Emergency Department (ED) to provide interventions, which translate into cost avoidance. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the interventions and associated cost avoidance that pharmacy residents provide during ED on-call shifts. Methods: This was a prospective, single-centered, observational study of interventions made by 11 pharmacy residents conducted from October 2021 through May 2022. Pharmacy residents prospectively logged their interventions into a database during their on-call shifts. The primary outcome was the total cost avoidance generated by pharmacy residents from accepted interventions. The secondary outcomes were the quantity and types of interventions, cost avoidance per resident and shift, and cost avoidance to salary ratio. Results: There were 918 interventions accepted on 763 patients over the course of 164 ED resident on-call shifts. The total annualized potential cost avoidance for these interventions was $1,422,474.85. The breakdown of accepted interventions was as follows: adverse drug event prevention 91.0%, resource utilization 64.7%, individualization of patient care 87.2%, prophylaxis 100%, hands-on care 98.3%, and administrative and supportive tasks 94.8%. Among the six categories, the highest potential cost avoidance came from adverse drug event prevention ($420,507.38). The estimated cost avoidance¸ per resident was $129,315.90 and per shift was $5,926.98 with residents intervening on 4 patients on average per shift. The cost avoidance to salary ratio using a pharmacy resident salary was $1.7:1. Conclusions: Interventions made by pharmacy residents during an on-call experience in the ED were associated with significant cost avoidance. Pharmacy residents can provide significant cost avoidance and optimize patient safety as outlined by the interventions and cost avoidance in this study.