Pharmacist authors of emergency medicine organization work products pertaining to pharmacotherapy

Despite the expertise that emergency medicine (EM) pharmacists bring to multidisciplinary teams in the emergency department (ED) setting, they are not commonly present on writing groups for guidelines, policies, or task forces pertaining to EM pharmacotherapy. The purpose of this article is to quantify EM pharmacist involvement on author bylines of guidelines, position statements, and other official documents that specifically encompass EM pharmacotherapy.

Official work products released between January 1, 2010, and May 1, 2021, were collected from the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP), Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM), and American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the table of contents of the following journals: Annals of Emergency Medicine, Academic Emergency Medicine, and Journal of Emergency Medicine. A modified Delphi approach was used to gain consensus amongst the authors on which work products to include in the initial review and which works pertained to pharmacotherapy. The primary endpoint was the percentage of pharmacists listed as authors on EM work products pertaining to pharmacotherapy.

Overall, 76 EM work products were identified. Forty-seven work products with a total of 248 authors contained at least 1 recommendation pertaining to pharmacotherapy. Of these 47 EM work products, 23 (49%) were from AAEM, 16 (34%) were from Annals of Emergency Medicine (published on behalf of ACEP), 5 (11%) were from Journal of Emergency Medicine (published on behalf of AAEM), and 3 (6%) were from SAEM. The median number of authors per work product was 4. There were 5 pharmacists listed on work products (2% of the total of 248 authors). Additionally, there were 9 nonpharmacist/nonphysician authors (4% of the total).

Pharmacist inclusion on author lists of recently published EM work products pertaining to pharmacotherapy is extremely low. Given their unique knowledge pertaining to EM pharmacotherapy, an effort should be made to increase inclusion of pharmacists as authors of EM work products with recommendations that pertain to pharmacotherapy.