Computer support of pharmaceutical services for ambulatory patients

A prototype computerized pharmaceutical services support system (CPSSS) is described. CPSSS maintains records on approximately 40,000 patients; 1,300 outpatient prescriptions are dispensed per day. Using Univac hardware and software developed inhouse, CPSSS provides an online drug therapy profile. The prescription label, including auxiliary information, storage and stability guidelines as well as the traditional information, is automatically generated. Prior to medication dispensing, all information is verified by a pharmacist after the computer searches the patient medication profile for 5,400 potential drug-drug, 1,500 drug-disease state, over 100 drug-allergy and 200 drug-laboratory test interactions as well as identifying duplicate pharmacological therapy. Retrospectively, the patient population is described as to sex, age and number of diagnoses. The number of prescriptions per physician also is reported. Twenty drugs represent one-half of the total prescriptions, with 32% of patients taking diuretics and 30% taking tranquilizers. All new prescriptions were prospectively reviewed. Approximately 2% had potential interactions or pharmacological duplication of therapy problems. Approximately 30% of all new prescriptions duplicated exactly an active prescription on file. When a pharmacist initiated physician contact as a result of CPSSS and profile review, physicians changed therapy approximately 73% of the time when informed of duplicate therapy, 27% of the time when informed of potential drug-disease state interactions and 32% of the time when informed of potential drug-drug interactions.