The Critical Care Pharmacist: An Essential Intensive Care Practitioner

Abstract

Clinical pharmacy services in the critical care setting have expanded dramatically and include assisting physicians in pharmacotherapy decision making, providing pharmacokinetic consultations, monitoring patients for drug efficacy and safety, providing drug information, and offering medical education to physicians, nurses, and patients. Measurable clinical effects of these services include reduced drug errors and adverse drug events, decreased morbidity and mortality rates, and a positive pharmacoeconomic impact by decreasing overall health care costs.

Assessment of Brazilian pharmacy students perception of their level of preparedness for pharmaceutical practice

“…In agreement with Hassali et al (2011), to be effective in their actions, pharmacists need to be well prepared to deal with patients. Various studies have reported the positive role of clinically trained pharmacists as mentioned by other healthcare professionals (Hanlon et al, 1996;Papadopoulos et al, 2002;Krupicka et al, 2002;McKee et al, 2011).…”

PROTECTED-UK – Clinical pharmacist interventions in the UK critical care unit: exploration of relationship between intervention, service characteristics and experience level

“…6). The presence of a consultant pharmacist had a moderate inverse correlation with the error rate detection of the unit (P = 0.008, r = À0.…”

Clinical and economic outcomes of involving pharmacists in the direct care of critically ill patients with infections*

“…P harmacists are assuming greater roles and responsibilities for patient care in the intensive care unit (ICU) and are integral members of the multidisciplinary ICU team (1)(2)(3)(4). Guidelines developed by the Society of Critical Care Medicine deem pharmacists as an essential component for providing quality care to critically ill patients and recommend the integration of a dedicated pharmacist into the ICU team (5).…”