P & T Committee perspectives: maintaining a successful formulary system in a private community hospital

Institution of an effective formulary and P & T Committee is a difficult but critical task for many private hospitals. In this exclusive Hospital Formulary interview, Drs. Benner, Mykita, and Brown, members of Sutter Memorial Hospital's Pharmacy, Formulary, and Therapeutic Review Committee (their name for the P & T Committee) emphasize the need for a sound formulary system in order to survive the current changes in health care. Sutter Memorial is sophisticated in its delivery of healthcare services, which include advanced neonatology and state-of-the-art heart transplantation. Although good patient care remains the foremost concern, these committee members acknowledge that care must be affordable as well as therapeutically sound. Key to their committee's success is the cooperative effort among the pharmacy, nursing, and medical staff. They foresee the issue of rational therapeutics as a major challenge in the 1990s.