Clinical pharmacy in an emergency medicine setting.

A decentralized emergency medicine clinical pharmacy program was initiated and has operated now for over 1 year. The program attempted to answer two questions: is there a viable clinical pharmacy role in emergency medicine, and could staff pharmacists successfully function in such a role without formal clinical training and experience? Initial primary objectives were to provide an on-the-spot pharmaceutical consultation service and to initiate new or expanded traditional pharmacy support to staff and patients. A secondary objective was to provide expanded outpatient prescription service to emergency room patients.