Effect of pharmacist interventions on drug therapy costs in a surgical intensive-care unit

The effect of interventions by a clinical pharmacist on the cost of drug therapy in a 14-bed surgical intensive-care unit (SICU) was evaluated. The SICU pharmacist provides both distributive and clinical services from a modified satellite pharmacy five days each week. During a 13-week study period that comprised 65 days, the pharmacist documented all interventions that resulted in a discontinuation of or change in drug therapy, all nonformulary-drug requests, the detection and avoidance of problems related to drug therapy, and the enrollment of patients in investigational drug studies (for which the pharmacy department received monetary remuneration). The effect of these interventions on the costs of drug therapy was calculated using drug acquisition costs and, for i.v. preparations, the cost of the i.v. fluid and the cost of preparing and checking the product. A total of 332 interventions during the study period represented $18,030 in potential cost avoidance, which would extrapolate to an annual cost avoidance of $72,122. The majority of interventions involved discontinuations of or changes in drug therapy, most often involving antimicrobials. This pharmacist had a positive impact on the cost of drug therapy in the SICU.