PHarmacist Avoidance or Reductions in Medical Costs in Patients Presenting the EMergency Department: PHARM-EM Study.

UNLABELLED

To comprehensively classify interventions performed by emergency medicine clinical pharmacists and quantify cost avoidance generated through their accepted interventions.

DESIGN

A multicenter, prospective, observational study was performed between August 2018 and January 2019.

SETTING

Community and academic hospitals in the United States.

PARTICIPANTS

Emergency medicine clinical pharmacists.

INTERVENTIONS

Recommendations classified into one of 38 intervention categories associated with cost avoidance.

MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS

Eighty-eight emergency medicine pharmacists at 49 centers performed 13,984 interventions during 917 shifts that were accepted on 8,602 patients and generated $7,531,862 of cost avoidance. The quantity of accepted interventions and cost avoidance generated in six established categories were as follows: adverse drug event prevention (1,631 interventions; $2,225,049 cost avoidance), resource utilization (628; $310,582), individualization of patient care (6,122; $1,787,170), prophylaxis (24; $22,804), hands-on care (3,533; $2,836,811), and administrative/supportive tasks (2,046; $342,881). Mean cost avoidance was $538.61 per intervention, $875.60 per patient, and $8,213.59 per emergency medicine pharmacist shift. The annualized cost avoidance from an emergency medicine pharmacist was $1,971,262. The monetary cost avoidance to pharmacist salary ratio was between $1.4:1 and $10.6:1.

CONCLUSIONS

Pharmacist involvement in the care of patients presenting to the emergency department results in significant avoidance of healthcare costs, particularly in the areas of hands-on care and adverse drug event prevention. The potential monetary benefit-to-cost ratio for emergency medicine pharmacists is between $1.4:1 and $10.6:1.