Impact of clinical pharmacist intervention on acute admission unit length of stay

Katrine B Lind,Charlotte A Sørensen,Suheil A Salamon,Marianne Lisby

doi:10.1186/1757-7241-23-s1-a40

Abstract

Background Quality and efficiency in the Emergency Department (ED) concerns clinicians and administrators worldwide because of an increasing number of patients and a desire for optimizing flow, avoiding crowding, and increasing the quality of the treatment. For patients referred to an Acute Admission Unit (AAU), which is a sub unit in the ED, the physicians have to obtain a medication history and medication reconciliation that are time consuming. Medication histories obtained by physicians are often incomplete. The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of a clinical pharmacist (CP) intervention on the patients’ AAU length of stay (AAU-LOS).

Highlights

Quality and efficiency in the Emergency Department (ED) concerns clinicians and administrators worldwide because of an increasing number of patients and a desire for optimizing flow, avoiding crowding, and increasing the quality of the treatment.For patients referred to an Acute Admission Unit (AAU), which is a sub unit in the ED, the physicians have to obtain a medication history and medication reconciliation that are time consuming
clinical pharmacist (CP) intervention consisted of obtaining a medication history, entering prescriptions into the electronic medication module (EMM), medication reconciliation & review, and a written note in the electronic medical record
Secondary outcome measures were physician time spent on medication topics, the number of medications per patient, and for the intervention group number of sources used for obtaining medication history and CP time spent

Summary

Introduction

Quality and efficiency in the Emergency Department (ED) concerns clinicians and administrators worldwide because of an increasing number of patients and a desire for optimizing flow, avoiding crowding, and increasing the quality of the treatment. For patients referred to an Acute Admission Unit (AAU), which is a sub unit in the ED, the physicians have to obtain a medication history and medication reconciliation that are time consuming. Medication histories obtained by physicians are often incomplete. The objective of the study was to investigate the impact of a clinical pharmacist (CP) intervention on the patients’ AAU length of stay (AAU-LOS)

Objectives

Methods

Results