US hospital pharmacy

the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) conducted a survey of pharmacy practice in hospital settings to generate some useful statistics.

The survey was sent to a stratified random sample of pharmacy directors at 1,315 general and children’s medical–surgical hospitals in the USA and enjoyed a completion rate of 29.8%.

The research revealed that drug policy development by pharmacy and therapeutics committees continued to be an important strategy for improving prescribing.

Formulary systems were claimed to be maintained in 63.0% of hospitals, while 89.7% of hospitals said they use clinical practice guidelines that include medications.

Pharmacists have the authority to order laboratory tests in 89.9% of hospitals or order medications in 86.8% of hospitals, the results said.

Therapeutic interchange policies are used in 89.2% of hospitals and electronic health records (EHRs) have been implemented partially or completely, most hospitals claimed (99.1%).

In addition, computerised prescriber-order-entry (CPOE) systems with clinical decision support are used in 95.6% of hospitals, and 92.6% of hospitals have barcode-assisted medication administration systems.

Other findings include that pharmacists practice in 39.5% of hospital ambulatory or primary care clinics and 64.5% of them have prescribing authority through collaborative practice agreements.

Visit ajhp.org for the abstract.