Clinical pharmacy service: contributions on a part-time basis

Staffing a majority of hospitals with full-time clinical pharmacists is an aim that will not be attainable for many years. In an effort to demonstrate an interim approach to clinical practice that could be applied to a large percentage of hospitals, a part-time clinical pharmacist's services were documented. Serving a teaching hospital with an average census of 97 patients, the pharmacist, with a 50 percent time allotment for clinical services, monitored 229 total admissions during an eleven week period. The majority of patients were on either a pulmonary medicine or urology service. The total number of actions taken as a result of pharmacy consultations was 106, with 70 percent of these being related to dosing problems. It was concluded that a pharmacist providing clinical services to a large patient population on a less than full-time basis can have a positive impact on drug therapy.