Effects of Emergency Room-specialized Pharmacists on Emergency Medicine

Abstract

It is difficult to say that pharmacist services in the emergency room (ER) are widespread nationwide. According to a survey of certified emergency pharmacists, the work area they are most commonly engaged in is the intensive care unit. This may be due to the lack of reimbursement for pharmacist services in ERs and the absence of operational guidelines. On the other hand, Sapporo Higashi Tokushukai Hospital has had ER specialized pharmacists (ESPs) since 2016 and has reported on the usefulness of pharmacist services in the ER at conferences and in papers. Among other things, it has been shown that the workload of emergency physicians is reduced by 1.9 h/d through the use of ESPs, and that also contributes to the increase in accurate diagnoses of drug-induced diseases and the treatment of infectious diseases. Reports on the benefits of ESP have also begun to emerge in Japan, including a significant decrease in the number of incident reports. Meanwhile, overseas reports indicate that ESPs have a significant impact on healthcare economics, such as "an annualized cost avoidance effect of more than 400 million yen." Furthermore, reports of improvements in operational guidelines and patient outcomes that support these guidelines indicate that ESPs in other countries are well-established ahead of their counterparts in Japan. We strongly hope that ESPs will increase in number and distribution in Japan in the future through the evaluation of reimbursement and formulation of operational guidelines.