Analysis of Pharmacist Interventions Used to Resolve Safety Target of Polypharmacy (STOP) Drug Interactions

Statin drug interactions commonly increase the risk of muscle-related toxicities. The medical literature supports consultative pharmacist interventions to resolve drug interactions, but studies demonstrating autonomous pharmacist interventions are lacking.

To evaluate the complementary impact of using pharmacist-led protocols and pharmacists with prescriptive authority to resolve statin drug interactions.

Pharmacist-led protocols were developed to address gemfibrozil-statin and niacin-statin interactions. Pharmacists discontinued gemfibrozil and niacin by protocol or referred patients to the Patient Aligned Care Team (PACT) Pharmacy Clinic for individualized management. After all drug interactions were addressed, a retrospective quality improvement analysis was conducted. The primary outcome was to evaluate the impact of gemfibrozil and niacin discontinuation by protocol on patients' triglyceride (TG) laboratory results. The coprimary endpoints were the change in TGs and the percentage of patients with TGs ≥ 500 mg/dL, following pharmacist discontinuation by protocol. Secondary outcomes included the time required to resolve the interactions and a description of the PACT Clinical Pharmacy Specialists' (CPS) pharmacologic interventions.

The gemfibrozil and niacin protocols addressed 397 drug interactions. Seventy-six patients underwent gemfibrozil discontinuation by protocol and had TG laboratory results available. TG levels decreased or increased by < 100 mg/dL for 62 patients (82%), and 1 patient (1.3%) experienced TG elevation above the threshold of 500 mg/dL. Thirty-six patients had niacin discontinued by protocol and available laboratory results. The TG levels decreased or increased by < 100 mg/dL for 33 patients (91.7%), and no patients had TG levels increase above the threshold of 500 mg/dL. The mean time required to resolve both gemfibrozil and niacin drug interactions was 15.5 minutes per patient. A total of 129 patients were referred to the PACT Pharmacy Clinic to manage gemfibrozil and niacin drug interactions. TG laboratory results were available for 80 gemfibrozil patients (74.8%) and 16 niacin patients (72.7%). The PACT CPS made 171 pharmacologic interventions to address drug interactions and the median of 2 encounters per patient.

This single-site quality improvement analysis supports the complementary use of protocols and pharmacists with prescriptive authority to resolve statin drug interactions. These data support expanded roles for pharmacists, across settings, to mitigate select drug interactions.