Impact of an embedded oncology clinical pharmacist in an outpatient oncology center.

Abstract

424 Background: Oncology pharmacists are uniquely positioned to improve the quality of care provided to patients with cancer within the team-based setting. Some benefits include providing information that supports safe and cost-effective use of medications relative to supportive care management, drug-drug interaction evaluation, patient counseling, answering drug information questions, and reducing physician workload. The primary objective of this study is to evaluate the benefit of a full-time clinical pharmacist in the ambulatory oncology setting through documenting pharmacist-driven clinical interventions, correspondence of those interventions with cost avoidance, and perceived benefit from provider and patient satisfaction surveys. Methods: Pharmacists were in clinic Monday through Thursday, covering three medical oncologists each day. Interventions were documented through EPIC i-Vents. The categories included: adverse events, drug interactions, lab monitoring, medication reconciliation, order clarification, patient education/counseling, drug information, and supportive care. Pharmacist interventions correlated with cost avoidance benefits based on values from prior publications. Weekly surveys were sent to the providers to assess satisfaction of the program and to improve workflow. Results: The data from this pilot program reflects the study period starting January 9, 2023 through June 1, 2023. The financial impact, as calculated from the pharmacist interventions, cost avoidance values and time spent resulted in the estimated cost avoidance of $169,321.10 based on a total of 839 interventions. Other interventions were made that were not given a cost value. Thus, the estimated cost savings is likely an under-estimation of the true cost savings provided from this service during this five-month study period. Extended providers (n = 5) and medical oncologists (n = 3) surveys indicated an overall strong agreement to the benefits of an oncology pharmacist’s involvement in clinic. The pilot program is currently working on a method to gather patient surveys to assess patient satisfaction. Conclusions: This study demonstrates the clinical and financial benefit of an embedded oncology pharmacist in the outpatient oncology clinic. As we move into an era with increasing approvals of oncology medications, coupled with increasing complexity of care, this service may help address some of the unmet gaps to improve collaborative and comprehensive patient-centered care.