Impact of Pharmacist Intervention on Inappropriate Continuations of Antipsychotics upon ICU Discharge

Background: Transitions of care (TOC) are important to best practices as they are at times prone to medication errors. The intensive care unit (ICU) is an essential location needing effective TOC due to many reasons, but an important one being that certain medications are only indicated there. One example is antipsychotics used for agitation, delirium, and sedation. Objective: To design, implement, and analyze the benefit of a pharmacist intervention on inappropriate antipsychotic continuation from the ICU to another point in care at a small community hospital. Secondary outcomes include patients discharged from the hospital on antipsychotics inappropriately and accepted pharmacist interventions. Methods: This standard of care, prospective with historical control study included adult patients who were ordered a formulary antipsychotic for delirium, agitation, or sedation during their ICU-level of care admission at SSM Health: St. Clare Hospital- Fenton. Results: There were 33 patients in the historical period and 24 in the intervention period. Those in the intervention period were less likely to have a continuation of antipsychotics beyond 72 hours compared to patients in the historical period (16.7% vs 57.6%, P = 0.002). In addition, patients in the intervention period were less likely to have continuation of antipsychotics when discharged to home (12.5% vs 36.4%, P = 0.04). Conclusions: A pharmacist-driven intervention led to a significant decrease in patients continuing antipsychotics upon ICU discharge. This decrease was seen at both 72 hours from patients leaving the ICU and at hospital discharge.