[Usefulness of Pharmacist Outpatient Services for Inflammatory Bowel Disease]

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an autoimmune disease that inflames the intestinal tract and reduces patient quality of life. In recent years, prescriptions of biologics and Janus kinase inhibitors have made outpatient pharmacists indispensable to clinics and hospitals. Therefore, we retrospectively investigated the effectiveness of immunopharmacist outpatient services in treating IBD. The survey spanned between January 2019 and December 2020 and included patients who had visited an IBD-specialized outpatient clinic. The endpoints were the number of pharmaceutical and accepted interventions, improvement rates, and cost-effectiveness of the pharmacist outpatient services. The definition of pharmaceutical intervention involves the pharmacist outpatient clinic, which refers to the number of prescription proposals made to doctors, and the dispensing room, which refers to the number of inquiries made to doctors. The survey included 139 patients, and 579 assessments were performed in the pharmacist outpatient clinic. Out of 352 pharmaceutical interventions by the outpatient pharmacist group, 341 (96.9%) were accepted by physicians. Similarly, out of 74 pharmaceutical interventions by the dispensing group, 54 (73.0%) were accepted by physicians (p<0.0001). The overall improvement rate of pharmaceutical interventions was 93.5%. The immunopharmacist outpatient clinic was found to be cost-effective, with an estimated value of 44068000 yen. In IBD outpatient services, clinical pharmacists and physicians are integral members of the medical care team and have a positive impact on drug treatment outcomes.