Impact of a Clinical Pharmacist in the General Hospital: An Egyptian Trial

Medication review aims at optimizing the impact of medications while minimizing their related problems. Drug-related problems have never been properly addressed in Egyptian hospitals. The purpose of this paper is to record and compare the prevalence and types of medication related problems, the interventions provided by the clinical pharmacists and how physicians responded along with making recommendations for error prevention. This prospective study was conducted between June 2012 and December 2012, at an Egyptian general hospital. Five trained pharmacists recorded patient-specific medication related recommendations and completed quality-of-care interventions. The average number of audited doses was 81% of those prescribed. The most prevalent medication problem was prescribing errors followed by administration errors. A total of 20 patients experienced adverse drug events. The greatest error rates across the seven months were observed in the ICU and cardiology units. Numbers of interventions offered by the pharmacists ranged from 241, to 519 per month. Nurses accepted all the interventions introduced by the pharmacists aimed at reducing administration errors while physicians’ resistance rates had an average of 21%. This study showed a positive influence of the pharmacist-led medication review in reducing potential drug-related problems in an Egyptian secondary care where the hospital under study implemented new measures to minimize drug related problems according to the findings of the trained pharmacists.