ASHP guidelines on the pharmacist's role in providing drug information.

The provision of drug information (DI) is among the fundamental professional responsibilities of all pharmacists. Recent practice trends, including increased provision of medication therapy management services and efforts to obtain provider status, have placed pharmacists in increasingly complex patient-care roles and necessitated a higher level of competence by all pharmacists in meeting DI needs. Drug information may be patient specific, academic (for educational purposes), or population based (to aid in the decision-making process for evaluating medication use for groups of patients). The goal of providing carefully evaluated, evidence-based recommendations to support specific medication-use practices is to enhance the quality of patient care, improve patient outcomes, and ensure the prudent use of resources. The primary focus of these guidelines is to describe contemporary DI activities, including the application of a systematic approach, appropriate documentation methods, and use of high-quality DI resources. This information is intended to assist pharmacists in providing optimal DI services in a variety of practice settings, including hospitals and health systems, outpatient care centers, managed care environments, medical communication departments, and university or academic-based drug information centers. Some of the activities described in these guidelines are the subjects of other American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) policy and guidance documents, which should be referred to for additional information. Pharmacists providing DI should use professional judgment in assessing ASHP’s policy and guidance documents and in adapting them to meet their health care organizations’ and patients’ needs and circumstances.