Pharmacist Prescribing at Inpatient Discharge in Alberta

Pharmacists in the province of Alberta may apply for additional prescribing authorization (APA), which allows them to independently prescribe medications. Currently, no literature exists about pharmacist prescribing for inpatients at the time of discharge.

The primary objective was to report the proportion of patients for whom inpatient pharmacists with APA prescribed at discharge across Alberta, Canada. Secondary objectives were to describe discharge interventions other than prescribing that were provided, enablers of and barriers to discharge prescribing, and differences in discharge prescribing by facility or population type, clinical area, and health care charting system.

A descriptive, cross-sectional web-based survey of inpatient pharmacists with APA across Alberta was conducted over a 6-week period in early 2022.

A total of 104 respondents met the inclusion criteria. Under half (45/102, 44.1%) of the participants reported prescribing at discharge. Those that reported prescribing at discharge did so for only a median 14.5% of their patients. The most common enabler of discharge prescribing was a supportive care team, and the most common barrier was the presence of other prescribers. Pharmacists who did not report prescribing at discharge selected "discomfort with being responsible for the prescription" and "fear of professional liability" as barriers more often than those who did report discharge prescribing (51.0% [26/51] vs 33.3% [13/39] and 43.1% [22/51] vs 25.6% [10/39], respectively). The proportion of pharmacists who reported prescribing at discharge was greater with increasing population/facility size (30% [6/20] of pharmacists in settings that served small populations vs 50% [29/58] of those in settings that served large populations).

Inpatient pharmacists who use APA at discharge reported prescribing for only a minority of patients, and discharge prescribing practices varied widely across the province. Future areas of research include how pharmacists can overcome barriers to prescribing at discharge.