Pharmaceutical service differences between teaching and community hospitals

The purpose of this study was to inventory the highly specialized units maintained in teaching hospitals and compare and contrast the scope and level of pharmaceutical services provided in teaching and similar-size community hospitals. In 1989, a 30-item questionnaire was mailed to a sample of 120 teaching hospitals. The scope and level of services provided was compared with similar size hospitals in the 1989 American Society of Hospital Pharmacists' survey of hospital-based pharmaceutical services. Teaching hospitals maintain more licensed and occupied beds, are more likely to be a member of a nonprofit multisystem organization, maintain many specialized care units and high speed transportation vehicles, exercise more control over specialized drugs and products, provide a broader array of pharmacy services to ambulatory patient populations, offer a more extensive and broader array of clinical services, maintain more extensive drug information resources, exercise more comprehensive formulary management initiatives, engage in broader diversified service initiatives, and generate 50% more annual pharmacy costs per occupied bed than do similar-sized community hospitals. Teaching hospitals are complex organizations that provide care to patients who require higher levels of pharmaceutical services than those provided in similar-sized community hospitals.