The involvement of pharmacists in professional and clinical audit in the UK: a review and assessment of their potential role

Abstract

This review addresses the uptake and implementation of the principles of audit by community, hospital and health authority pharmacists. The pressures to audit professional services are discussed, as are the barriers to cooperation among pharmacists and between pharmacists and prescribers in primary care. The development of standards of professional practice is then described taking into account the particular difficulty in developing standards for health care workers who are geographically separated from other members of the primary care team and are in commercial competition with each other. The review identifies audit of professional services in both community and hospital pharmacy and of clinical services in the latter. The role of pharmacists employed by health authorities to advise them and general practitioners on the optimum use of the drug budget is described and their potential role for involvement in audit is discussed. The particular advantages that pharmacists in hospital and health authorities have in developing the specific aspect of clinical audit related to medicines usage (drug utilization review) is then described. The potential for pharmacists to contribute to clinical and management audit is discussed.

Hospital prescribing errors: epidemiological assessment of predictors

“…Prescribing and administration are joint responsibilities. This situation differs in other countries [6, 7].…”

“…On admission, confusion about current preadmission treatment exists and dosing of preadmission drugs is often continued based on patient memory without further verification at his or her community pharmacy. In due time, in the Netherlands, hospitals will introduce computerized prescribing and electronic pharmacotherapeutic information transfer between sectors [7, 27, 29, 30].…”

The Changing Roles Of Pharmacists In Society

“…The conduct of clinical audit systems by individual professions has helped the clinical audit concept develop into a multidisciplinary effort, coordinated by hospital-wide committees in which hospital pharmacists play a role. [15][16][17] Audit methodology is being developed as part of a developing research culture in health service delivery, which is reflected in the expansion of health services research within each of the health care professions.…”

Groups or teams in health care: finding the best fit

“…Panton & Fitzpatrick [31] argue that in rural and remote regions where providers are geographically more separated, the development of standards of professional practice may be difficult, but not necessarily impossible to achieve. Work on the development of training programs and standards specific for isolated and remote rural practice is beginning in a number of States in Australia.…”