Clinical Pharmacist and Physician Team Collaboration to Improve Medication Safety and Cost Savings in an Inpatient Medicine Unit: A Prospective Cohort Study

Background: To prevent adverse drug events and promote patient safety, medication reconciliation is critical in all patient care settings. The purpose of this study was to identify medication discrepancies occurring in an inpatient medicine unit and to analyze the clinical and economic benefit of clinical pharmacist and physician team collaboration. Methods: A prospective cohort study in which pharmacist attended daily team rounds and assisted with medication management and medication reconciliation on admission and discharge in an academic hospital with internal medicine residents. All interventions related to medication management were categorized based on error type, severity of harm, preventable, non-preventable and potential adverse drug events. The economic outcome associated with these medication errors was analyzed. Results: There were 160 admissions and 179 pharmacist recommendations with a 91% acceptance rate from physicians. There were 145 discharges during the study period of which 104 medication discrepancies were identified. Eighty nine of the medication discrepancies were corrected by the pharmacist within 72 hours of discharge. Pharmacist identified 11 actual adverse drug events. Cost savings from pharmacist interventions during the study period was $11,652 and cost avoidance from intercepting potential and actual adverse drug events was $256,806. Conclusion: Collaboration of pharmacist with a physician team improved medication safety and led to significant cost savings and cost avoidance.