Hospital Pharmacist
2006;13:198
June 2006

News summary

Better clinical pharmacy studies needed

Future studies into the effect that clinical pharmacists have on patient outcomes should describe interventions in sufficient detail that they can be reproduced. They should also measure outcomes using validated instruments and, ideally, involve more than one centre. These are among the suggestions of US researchers, who carried out a literature review of clinical pharmacy papers, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine (2006;166:955-64).

From the 36 (out of almost 350) papers that satisfied their inclusion criteria, the authors conclude that the use of clinical pharmacists on hospital wards to improve the quality, safety and efficacy of care is supported.