Pharmacists detect more adverse drug events from drug charts than other health care workers, US study suggests
Pharmacists detect more adverse drug events (ADEs) when reviewing drug charts than other health care workers, a US study suggests (American
Journal of Health-System Pharmacy 2007;64:842).
The researchers identified 13 studies that examined different health
professionals’ ability to detect ADEs, including adverse drug reactions
and medication errors, and which could be reasonably compared.
Their analysis showed a mean weighted ADE detection rate of 0.33 ADEs
per admission for pharmacists compared with 0.16 per admission detected
by non-pharmacists (doctors in all but one study, where nurses and medical
record administrators were used as reviewers).
“Despite the heterogeneity, there is strong evidence that pharmacist-led
interventions based on chart review report a higher ADE rate among inpatients.
Our data suggest that pharmacists are the most thorough chart reviewers,” they
say.
However, the researchers warn that dedicating full-time clinical pharmacist
positions to ADE chart review is expensive and difficult to justify.
They suggest that automation of chart review would provide a potential
solution but would need to incorporate the cognitive reasoning used by
pharmacists.
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