2025 Southeastern Residency Conference

Title: Description of Clinical Pharmacist Interventions on an Acute Care Unit
Authors: Jamarius Carvin, Kelley Frances Henley, Niaima Geresu, Irene Bemis, Kristina Evans, Stella Ye 
Objective: Evaluate the impact of a dedicated clinical pharmacist on acute care unit interventions 
Self-assessment: How did a dedicated pharmacist affect daily interventions? 
Background: In a clinical setting, pharmacists optimize medication therapy and enhance patient safety. Studies have shown pharmacists identify and prevent errors with potential cost avoidance. Quantifying their impact is crucial for justifying clinical pharmacy services, especially concerning medication errors at hospital discharge, which pose risks and increase costs. Pharmacist-led medication reconciliation at discharge (PMRD) has shown positive impacts on reducing medication errors, preventing adverse drug events and improving patient safety. Pharmacists also provide drug information, optimize therapy, and improve cost-effectiveness. It is important to continue to evaluate the impact of a clinical pharmacist in an evolving healthcare field, so this research investigates the impact of implementing a dedicated clinical pharmacist on an acute care unit by quantifying interventions. 


Methods: This retrospective chart review was conducted at Grady Health System (GHS). The study compared two periods on a 40-bed acute care unit: a baseline period (20 weekdays in April 2024) with usual GHS pharmacy protocol and an intervention period (20 weekdays from May-June 2024) with a dedicated pharmacy resident. The primary outcome was the average number of pharmacist interventions per day. Secondary outcomes included intervention categorization, the number of patients with interventions, the total number of interventions, and high-risk medication interventions. Exclusion criteria were duplicate documented interventions. Descriptive statistics and chi-squared testing were used for analysis. 


Results: The average number of interventions per day increased from 5.7 (± 2.6) in the control period to 16.85 (± 7.8) in the intervention period. The total number of documented interventions in the control period was 99 compared to 337 in the intervention period.  The number of patients with at least one documented pharmacist intervention increased from 61 to 175