Pharmacist-led intervention in the multidisciplinary team approach optimizes heart failure medication

Area of Science:

• Cardiology
• Pharmacology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Heart failure (HF) management requires optimized medication regimens.
• Pharmacist involvement in multidisciplinary teams can improve patient outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of pharmacist-led HF drug recommendations during hospitalization.
• To assess changes in medication prescribing patterns and patient outcomes.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective review of hospitalized HF patients.
• Comparison of a non-intervention group (n=208) with an intervention group (n=170) utilizing a HF multidisciplinary team (HFMDT) approach with pharmacist-led medication optimization.
• Analysis of beta-blocker and ACE-I/ARB prescriptions, non-preferred drug use, mortality, and length of stay.

Main Results:

• The intervention group showed a significant increase in beta-blocker prescriptions at discharge (96.3% vs 73.3%, P=0.027).
• Non-preferred drug prescriptions significantly decreased in the intervention group (22.9% to 12.9%, P=0.005).
• No significant differences were observed in ACE-I/ARB prescription changes, in-hospital mortality, or length of stay between groups.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacist-led HF drug recommendations within an HFMDT approach improve beta-blocker prescribing.
• This intervention effectively reduces the use of non-preferred medications in hospitalized HF patients.
• Pharmacist collaboration enhances HF medication optimization during hospitalization.