Impact of pharmaceutical care pathway established in hepatobiliary surgery.

Abstract

Clinical pharmacists play a pivotal role in ensuring medication safety due to their detailed understanding of the medication-use process. This study aimed to propose the concept of pharmaceutical care pathway (PCP) in surgical care and design the work pattern and workflow in the healthcare systems of China. Data were collected from patients in the Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery of the First People's Hospital of Lianyungang in China between January 2019 and December 2019. The study was conducted using 346 patients in the control group and 363 in the intervention group. The control group was managed only by the clinical pathway (CP), while the intervention group was managed by the CP and PCP. Adverse drug reactions (ADRs), patient satisfaction, hospital expense, drug cost, length of stay, and prescription situations were documented. Using PCP, the rational use of drugs increased from 56% in the control group to 94.2% in the intervention group. Further, 124 (35.8%) ADRs in the control group and 44 (12.1%) ADRs in the intervention group were assessed using the Karch and -Lasagna scale. The mean hospital expense was 21,949.12 ± 2,311.25 yuan in the control group and 17,566.25 ± 1,082.56 yuan in the intervention group. The mean drug cost was 6,250.69 ± 589.35 yuan and 4,894.22 ± 356.14 yuan (1 US$ = 6.37 yuan). The mean length of stay was 12.23 ± 2.51 days and 8.35 ± 1.32 days in the control and intervention groups, respectively. Patient satisfaction increased significantly. PCP reduced the length of stay for patients and drug-related adverse events, increased the rational use of drugs, cost-effectiveness, patient satisfaction, and consequently, improved the quality of service in surgery medicine.