The integration of quality assessment and a patient-specific intervention/outcomes program

The clinical intervention program in place at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is based on the pharmacist's evaluation of the patient, the disease state, and the appropriateness of the selected therapy. The system was developed so that all pharmacists within our institution: staff pharmacists, clinical pharmacy specialists, clinical pharmacists, and pharmacy residents can easily and efficiently document all interactions with other health care providers. The recent introduction of the Medication Use Indicators process by the Joint Commission has provided many pharmacy departments with a series of outcome measurements which may prove useful in their attempts to maximize contributions to the medication use process. In this article, we describe how our department has begun to utilize the Joint Commission indicator data by integrating information from them into the daily practices of our staff, and how our department has utilized a formal interventions and outcomes program to evaluate such efforts.