How to Improve Clinical Pharmacy Practice Using Key Performance Indicators

Abstract

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are measurable tools to keep track of progress on a specific performance objective of an institution. By selecting the proper KPI, we can identify the area of improvement in structure, process and outcome. KPIs should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time bound). In addition, KPIs should be easy to understand, evidence based, reliable, acceptable and feasible. Clinical pharmacy key performance indicator (cp KPI) is a standard quantitative measure of progress for a specific clinical activity performed by clinical pharmacist. These cp KPIs serve as objective indicators to measure the efficiency of delivery of evidence-based patient care. The clinical services provided might be upon patient admission, during admission and at discharge in addition to outpatient services. Medication reconciliation at admission, pharmaceutical care plan and patient counseling at discharge are examples for process KPI for clinical services provided by pharmacist, while rate of adverse drug reaction and patient re admission are examples for outcome KPI. In conclusion application of cp KPI and quality metric is a great opportunity to give the general public a valuable insight into the contributions of clinical pharmacists to improve the overall quality of clinical care. This could help the profession demonstrate how pharmacy knowledge and skills are used to deliver patient outcomes rather than the supply of medicines. Selecting the suitable cp KPI will help us improve clinical pharmacy services and patient outcome.