Assessing whether a clinical pharmacy program is meeting its goals

An assessment of whether the clinical pharmacy program at Memorial Hospital Medical Center (MHMC), Long Beach CA, was meeting its goals is presented. MHMC is a 858-bed, nonprofit teaching hospital that initiated a clinical pharmacy program in 1967. The program's three foremost goals were to: (1) establish cohesive and standardized clinical services, (2) promote the acceptance of the roles and functions of clinical pharmacists by physicians and nurses, and (3) assure the provision of good quality care. The evaluation data were collected over a six-week period using questionnaire surveys of approximately 28 pharmacists, 146 physicians, and 389 nurses; pharmacist service reports from 5991 drug monitorings; 228 medical record audits for six drugs; 68 guideline compliance records for three drugs; interviews with 131 users of the drug information services; abd logs of 3946 pharmacist encounters with other health-care providers. Generally, the clinical pharmacy program was found to be meeting its goals. Most of the monitorings (81.6%) were initiated by pharmacists, and 20% resulted in changes in drug therapy. The pharmacists adhered to the pharmacy department's monitoring and dosing guidelines. There was unanimous satisfaction among users of the drug information service with the response received from pharmacists, and 99% satisfaction with the promptness of response and accuracy of the information. Sixty-eight percent of the pharmacists reported discussing general issues with physicians, and 72% answered patient-specific questions from physicians. The physicians (96%) and nurses (97%) thought that there was an improvement in the quality of patient care as a result of pharmacist involvement. Pharmacists at MHMC are providing useful clinical services.