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The role of the clinical pharmacist in reducing mortality in hospitalized cardiac patients: A prospective, nonrandomized controlled trial using propensity score methods.
Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther. 2015 Mar;53(3):220-9
Authors: Zhai XB, Tian DD, Liu XY
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Meta-analyses have suggested that pharmacist-led medication reviews have no discernable effect on patient mortality. These analyses may not have found a statistically significant effect because they did not adequately control for the patient selection parameters. Therefore, a more precise approach to evaluating the effect of clinical pharmacist interventions on the mortality rates of hospitalized cardiac patients is required.
OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the impact of the clinical pharmacist as a direct patient-care team member on the mortality of all patients admitted to cardiology units.
METHODS: A prospective, nonrandomized observational study compared patients who received standard care with patients admitted to a service that included clinical pharmacists. Propensity score matching was applied to enhance the comparability. The primary endpoint of the study was the composite of all-cause mortality in the study group and the control group.
RESULTS: Pharmacists were consulted by physicians to correct any drug-related issues that they suspected may cause or contribute to a fatal outcome in the cardiology ward. A total of 428 interventions were suggested by the clinical pharmacist in the study group; 375 (87.6%) of them were accepted by the cardiology team. All-cause mortality was 1.8% during phase 1 treatment (preintervention) and was reduced to 1.1% during phase 2 treatment (postintervention); the difference was statistically significant. There was no statistical difference in all-cause mortality in the control unit between phase 1 and phase 2. Results were similar in the propensity score-matched subcohort.
CONCLUSIONS: Drug-related problems that were suspected to cause or contribute to a possibly fatal outcome were determined by the clinical pharmacist service in patients hospitalized in a cardiology ward. Correction of these drug-related problems by physicians after the pharmacist's advice caused a significant decrease in mortality as analyzed by propensity score matching. The significant reduction in the mortality rate in this patient population observed in this study is "hypothesis generating" for future randomized studies.
PMID: 25546163 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]