Economic and humanistic impact of adverse events associated with CSFs

The current economic health care environment is causing considerable challenges for hospital pharmacy. As pharmacy managers attempt to deal with managing the costs associated with pharmaceuticals, there is considerable pressure to account for the clinical outcomes associated with drug therapy. Particularly in cancer treatment as high-cost biopharmaceuticals have infiltrated the care of these patients, pharmacy managers must account for reimbursement issues, clinical outcomes, patient satisfaction and demands, budgetary costs, and appropriate use of costly resources. Consequently, managers need to develop strategies to address these concerns. Ideally, pharmacoeconomics should be used to incorporate the costs of clinical outcomes and drug costs into the overall evaluation of drug therapy. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, the practical application of pharmacoeconomics is not universally employed and, as a result, most evaluations rely on only drug costs. A method to assess the economic impact of clinical outcomes associated with adverse drug events and cancer chemotherapy is described.