Pharmacists' interventions on intravenous to oral conversion for potassium

Guidelines recommend use of the oral route whenever possible to treat or prevent hypokalemia. Although a myriad of papers have been published regarding intravenous to oral (IV to PO) therapy conversion programs and about clinical pharmacy services provided in hospitals, little is known on the role of hospital pharmacists in promoting the oral route for potassium administration.

The aim of this work was to describe the frequency of interventions related to IV to PO potassium therapy conversions performed by hospital pharmacists. Setting French hospitals recording pharmacist's interventions on the website tool of the French Society of Clinical Pharmacy.

From the pharmacist's interventions (PI) dataset recorded we extracted all interventions related to potassium IV to PO conversion. We assessed the acceptance rate of these PI by prescribers. Additional free text information in the dataset was analysed.

IV to PO potassium therapy conversions related to potassium chloride.

From January 2007 to December 2010, 87 hospitals recorded 1,868 PIs concerning IV to PO therapy conversion. Among these, 16 (<1 %) concerned potassium chloride. They were recorded by four hospitals (4.6 %) with respectively 12, 2, 1 and 1 PIs. Six PIs were accepted by physicians and the prescriptions were modified.

PIs to promote the administration of potassium by the oral route are extremely rare. Our results and scarce previously published data reveal that this field of practice remains almost unexplored. These findings highlight an important gap in the field of intravenous to oral therapy programs. This situation must be regarded as unsatisfactory and should lead to setting up more education and research programs.