Evaluation of pharmacist’s interventions in a Hospital Pharmacy of a Secondary Care Centre of Aga Khan University Hospital

Abstract

Objective: The current study aimed to investigate pharmacists’ intervention statistics in a secondary care setting in Pakistan.

Methodology: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted at a secondary care facility of Aga Khan University, Karachi, Pakistan, analyzing in-patient and out-patient pharmacy records from June 2022 to June 2023.

Results: The study analyzed records of 10.9% (n=1340) male and female patients with a median age of six years (IQR: 23 years). Pharmacists intervened in 99.1% (n=1329) of prescriptions due to prescribing errors (PEs). The most common intervention was therapy optimization (e.g., therapeutic drug monitoring, incomplete prescriptions, wrong doses/frequencies, updating drug allergies, following culture/sensitivity results and monitoring electrolytes), accounting for 72.4% (n=970) of interventions, followed by route conversion at 19.6% (n=263). The overall acceptance rate of pharmacists’ interventions among physicians was 88.7% (n=1189).

Conclusion: PEs were common and pharmacists’ interventions were vital in preventing patient harm. PEs were more frequent among in-patients at risk of polypharmacy. Pharmacists optimized therapy across all age groups by adjusting doses, administration routes and applying restrictions. The study noted high acceptance of these interventions.