Outpatient pharmaceutical services in academically affiliated hospitals and selected community hospitals

Abstract

The outpatient pharmaceutical services provided by university or medical school-affiliated hospitals and those offered by community hospitals were compared. A questionnaire was sent to a sampling of hospitals that had full-time pharmaceutical services. The hospital pharmacists were asked how frequently they performed 13 patient-oriented services. Four hundred community hospitals from 13 western states and 95 university hospitals nationwide were surveyed. The four null hypotheses tested were: (I) There is no difference between university and community hospitals in mean frequency of patient-oriented pharmaceutical services; (II) the mean frequencies of patient-oriented services are independent of hospital bed capacity; (III) the mean frequencies of patient-oriented services are independent of whether or not clinic outpatients are served by the outpatient pharmacy; and (IV) the mean frequencies of patient-oriented services are independent of the number of full-time equivalent pharmacists employed by the pharmacy. Performance of the 13 patient-oriented services was almost parallel for both the university and community hospitals. The only service that demonstrated a significant difference (p less than 0.05) between the two groups was "prescribing and renewing medication at the request of the physician." The most frequently performed services were to give patients oral medication instructions and drug information for the medical staff. Null hypothesis I was not rejected. A four-way analysis of variance was performed on null hypotheses II, III, and IV; II and III were rejected (alpha less than or equal to 0.05). Nevertheless, a one-way analysis of variance, post-hoc test, and t test revealed that the performance of patient-oriented services was more frequent in hospitals with less than 100 beds and in hospitals that provided outpatient services to clinic patients. Null hypothesis IV was not rejected.