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When hospital pharmacists are part of a hospital multidisciplinary team, adverse events are reduced 78 percent in patients transferred between hospital units.
System Pharmacists (ASHP), which represents pharmacists in acute and ambulatory settings, cited a 2002 study that found potential medi- cation errors were reduced by 82 percent when trained pharmacy technicians obtained medication histories. Previous errors included incomplete or incorrect information, illegible orders and serious drug interactions.
Another study revealed that when hospital pharmacists are part of a hospital multidisciplinary team, adverse events are reduced 78 per- cent in patients transferred between hospital units.
Pharmacists involved with patients immediately before and after discharge prove signi cant to readmission rate reduction. A random study of 178
patients showed that when pharma- cists performed discharge counsel- ing and telephone follow-up, patients experienced an 11 percent reduction in adverse events and an 8 percent reduction in medication-related ED visits and hospital readmissions.4
A 2015 study examined the impact of pharmacist involvement in Project Re-Engineered Discharge (RED), a program that coordinates patient discharge care using discharge nurse education and telephone-interven- tions by pharmacists. The study contained 401 patients; 277 patients received a telephone intervention from a pharmacist and 124 patients were incommunicado. Unplanned hospitalizations were reduced 52 per- cent in the pharmacist intervention group, compared to 23 percent for