Tertiary Pharmaceutical Care Services Between Facts and Realities

Abstract

Pharmacy practice is dynamic, evolving and requires high level of drug knowledge in clinical judgment, decision making and advanced skills in actively and systematically identifying and resolving patients pharmacotherapy problems for desired outcomes to be achieved in patient care. This study organized literatures and identified the evidence based and ever increasing roles of pharmacists in tertiary pharmaceutical care. Literature search was conducted in Embase, Medline and Cochrane for evidence based studies describing pharmacist’s tertiary pharmaceutical care. Studies were selected based on their relivance to the subject, existing theories and models, and were summarized based on qualitative level. Results indicated that clinical pharmacist led pharmaceutical care improved clinical, economic, and humanistic outcomes in tertiary care settings. Pharmacists’ roles have evolved from a product to cost effective patient oriented services.