Drug information access for pharmacists’ bedside decision making

Abstract

The provision of Drug Information (DI) is a routine component of the daily practice of a pharmacist and the presence of a pharmacist at the patient bedside has been associated with decreased drug cost and reduction in hospital stays. The aim of this study was to evaluate and assess the access of DI by pharmacists at the patient bedside. A focus group was set up during which users and providers of DI at Mater Dei Hospital (MDH), Malta discussed limitations for DI access at bedside. An 8-week prospective study at the Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) at MDH was carried out to identify challenges to offer a DI bedside service. Challenges to DI bedside access as identified from the focus group were Wi-Fi access at ward level and lack of online and updated resources. During the period at ITU, 140 bedside queries were forwarded to the pharmacist. Most were inquired by medical officers (43%), medical consultants (32%) and nurses (16%). Medical officers and consultants queried about pharmacotherapy such as ADRs and drug interactions (28%) while queries from nurses included drug administration and dosing (1%). Fiftynine percent (59%) of the queries were answered in less than 5 minutes. Queries which required an in-depth search about a specific topic (14%) were forwarded to respective specialties. Micromedex was used to answer 60% of the queries while UpToDate had an answer to 36% of the queries. The presence of a pharmacist at patient bedside improves the time taken to answer DI queries at ward level. DI requests could be tackled by the pharmacist at bedside within 5 to 10 minutes using Micromedex and UptoDate.