Quality of care evaluation applied to assessment of clinical pharmacy services

Drug information supplied in a clinical setting was evaluated to determine the quality of care provided by a group of clinical pharmacists. Both process and outcome were assessed to determine the pharmacists' effectiveness in supplying clinical pharmacy services as well as to determine the relationship between these services and patient outcomes. Evaluation was conducted by a group of five physicians and the coordinator of the clinical pharmacy program. The method of evaluation seemed to contain a very high degree of interviewer reliability. Results indicate a moderate correlation, significant beyond the 0.01 level, between intermediate outcomes and the clinical pharmacy care process. The review group judged approximately three-fourths of the drug information communications as having at least a "significant" potential for benefiting the patient. Outcome measurement indicated, however, that only 14.5% of these communications were judged as actually benefiting the patient while 25% were judged as probably benefiting the patient.