Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center, Houston, TX, USA.
Department of Pharmacy Practice, Texas Southern University, College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Houston, TX, USA.
Am J Hosp Palliat Care. 2022 Jul;39(7):856-864. doi: 10.1177/10499091211049401. Epub 2021 Sep 28.
Palliative care is a specialized health care service for individuals with serious illness at any stage and can be provided in any setting. Current national consensus developed by palliative care experts recommends the inclusion of pharmacists in an interdisciplinary team (IDT) to provide quality palliative care. However, national registry data report that less than 10% of inpatient palliative teams in the U.S. have a clinical pharmacist. Clinical pharmacists have an impactful role in palliative patients' quality of life by optimizing symptom management, deprescribing, and providing education to the palliative care team as well as patients and their families. In this report, we review the current literature on the role of a palliative pharmacist in an inpatient palliative care setting and compare and contrast this with our own clinical practice, providing case examples about the role of a palliative clinical pharmacist in an interdisciplinary inpatient palliative care setting. Future strategies are needed to increase post-graduate specialized pharmacy residency training in palliative care as well as education on palliative and hospice care in pharmacy schools to support the role of clinical pharmacists in palliative care.
缓和医疗是为任何阶段患有严重疾病的个体提供的专业医疗保健服务，可在任何环境中提供。目前，缓和医疗专家制定的国家共识建议将药剂师纳入多学科团队（IDT），以提供高质量的缓和医疗。然而，国家登记数据报告称，美国不到 10%的住院缓和医疗团队有临床药师。临床药师通过优化症状管理、撤药以及向缓和医疗团队以及患者及其家属提供教育，在缓和医疗患者的生活质量方面发挥着重要作用。在本报告中，我们回顾了关于缓和医疗临床药师在住院缓和医疗环境中的作用的现有文献，并将其与我们自己的临床实践进行了比较和对比，提供了关于缓和医疗临床药师在多学科住院缓和医疗环境中的作用的案例示例。需要制定未来的策略，以增加缓和医疗方面的研究生专业药学住院医师培训以及药剂学学校的缓和医疗和临终关怀教育，以支持临床药师在缓和医疗中的作用。
