Abstract

THE ROLE OF CLINICAL PHARMACIST IN PATIENTS WITH CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES

Donthi Vamshi Krishna Reddy*, Kadarla Rohith Kumar and Dr. P. Manjula

Abstract

The role of clinical pharmacist is considered valuable in providing the best possible health care services and this is done by diminishing the prescription errors, rationalizing the treatment and reducing the cost of treatment. The primary objective of this study was to determine the number and type of medication errors intervened by the clinical pharmacist at IPD in the multispecialty hospital. The results indicate that 41.48% interventions were majorly significant, 32.31% interventions were moderately significant, and 26.2% were categorized as minorly significant having no potential to cause any harm. The need for interventions in most cases was due to adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, dispensing error, incorrect diagnosis, improper review of past medical history, drug dose modification in special population. In this study period we scrutinized and meticulously studied the medical records of 458 patients in cardiovascular department and found pharmacist interventions in the ongoing therapy. In our study the interventions undertaken by the pharmacists were well received and accepted by the attending physicians in the hospital and we could conclude that if pharmacist had good knowledge and effective way of communication, they could get the attention of the prescriber and convince them to make necessary changes resulting in cost effectiveness and rationalizing the drug therapy.

Keywords: Pharmacist Interventions; Cardiovascular; Cost effectiveness; Rationalizing the drug therapy.