# Presentation: 456859

## Clinical Pharmacy Services in the Emergency Department

- Daniel P. Hays, Pharm.D., BCPS
- Director, Specialty Residency in Emergency Medicine/Critical Care
- Clinical Pharmacy Specialist – Emergency Medicine
- University of Rochester Medical Center
- Strong Memorial Hospital

## History of Emergency Pharmacy Services

- 1970’s1
- Billing
- Inventory control
- Clinical pharmacy services
- 1980’s led way for pharmaceutical care

- 1 Ellenbaas, et all

## ED is a Unique Practice

- Many safety mechanisms not available in ED
- Pharmacy USUALLY not present
- NO DOUBLE CHECK
- JCAHO supports pharmacist double check on ALL medication orders

## Unique Practice cont.

- High Patient Volume
- Verbal Orders
- HIGH STRESS situations

## Contributing Factors to Hazards

- Patients are strangers
- Multiple patients being treated at same time
- Wide range of medications utilized
- Interruptions/distractions
- ED Dispensing
- Time Constraints
- Tight Coupling

- Croskerry, et.al. Academic Emergency Medicine

## Reasons for Chaos

- One time orders
- Little patient history
- No other safety mechanism in place
- Changing gears
- Inpatients/outpatients co-mingling
- 4 times as many ED visits as OR in US!

## Medication Errors in the ED

- ED has highest rate of preventable errors
- 110 MILLION ED patients yearly in US*
- 5% experience potential events
- 70% of these are PREVENTABLE**

- *National Center for Health Statistics.
- **Harvard Medical Study

## Let’s Compare

- 77% of all ED medication errors between ordering phase and administration phase
- 23% of errors were discovered before patient received medication
- 39% in other area of hospital

- USP Patient Safety CAPS Link

## Challenges to Implementation

- Financial
- Staffing
- Acceptance by medical staff / turf issues
- Physicians, nursing, midlevel providers, etc
- Physical space within ED
- Training

## Strong Memorial Hospital

- ED has > 120 beds
- Over 500 doses of medication dispensed per day
- Over 90,000 patient visits per year
- 60,000 adults
- 30,000 pediatrics
- Nationally ~ 3.5% of ED’s have Pharm presence

## Pharmacist Duties in the Emergency Department

- Clinical
- Academic
- Research
- Administrative
- Distribution

## Clinical Duties

- Clinical Consultation
- Attend rounds and present patient information
- Dose recommendations
- Therapeutic substitution
- Disease state specific pharmacotherapy
- Pharmacokinetics
- Being available – and visible!!

## Clinical Duties

- Medication history
- Allergy screening
- Pregnancy medication consultation
- Weight based dosing
- Pediatric
- Obese
- Geriatric
- Disease specific (CF, FTT, etc)

## Clinical Duties

- Patient Education
- Medication specific education
- Asthma
- Warfarin
- LMWH
- Diabetes
- Discharge counseling

## Order Review

- Allergies
- Medication interactions
- Inappropriate
- Dose
- Route
- Indication
- ED is only place within SMH that has handwritten orders

## The Medication Process

- Prescribing
- Transcribing
- Dispensing
- Administering
- Monitoring
- Discharge Medications

## Prescribing

- Incomplete knowledge of medication
- Incomplete knowledge of patient
- Less access to
- Patient medications prior to visit
- Patient history

## Transcribing

- Verbal Orders
- Poor penmanship
- Team communication errors

## Dispensing

- Dispensed by nursing
- Dispensed by physicians
- Thorough counseling not available/performed

## Administration of Medications

- Multiplicity of medications
- Therapeutic duplications
- Potency of medications
- Multiple patients in the ED
- Parenteral administration
- Drug incompatibilities
- Physician administration

## Monitoring

- Parenteral administration
- Esp cardiac medications, insulin, etc...
- Emergency procedures
- Inadequate personnel

## Discharge Medications

- Complex procedures
- Medicated patients leaving the ED

## Chart Review

- Review all patient charts for appropriate medication use
- Underutilization
- Overutilization
- Polypharmacy

## Distribution

- Automated dispensing machines
- CPOE for admitted patients
- Pharmacy System
- PYXIS
- Pharmacist available for assistance

## Public Awareness

- ASHP / ACCP involvement
- National EM/CC society involvement
- Publications
- AHRQ Grant

## References

- Elenbaas, R.M., *Role of the pharmacist in providing clinical pharmacy services in the emergency department.* The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy., 1978. **31(4)**: p. 123-5.
- Bowles, G.C., Jr., *Emergency room trends place increasing demands on pharmacy.* Modern hospital., 1966. **106(1)**: p. 127.
- Angelides, A.P. and T.A. Manzelli, *Control of emergency department medications.* Hospitals., 1966. **40(12)**: p. 98-102.
- Maudlin, R.K. and E. Owyang, *Emergency department drugs.* Hospitals., 1971. **45(9)**: p. 88-92.
- Elenbaas, R.M., J.F. Waeckerle, and W.K. McNabney, *The clinical pharmacist in emergency medicine.* American journal of hospital pharmacy., 1977. **34(8)**: p. 843-6.
- Kaushal R, Bates D. 2001. The clinical pharmacist.s role in preventing adverse drug events. In: *Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Analysis of Patient Safety Practices *(Evidence Report/Technology Assessment, No. 43). Rocekville, MD: AHRQ.

## References

- Spigiel, R.W. and R.J. Anderson, *Comprehensive pharmaceutical services in the emergency room.* American journal of hospital pharmacy., 1979. **36(1)**: p. 52-6.
- Culbertson, V. and R.J. Anderson, *Pharmacist involvement in emergency room services.* Contemporary pharmacy practice., 1981. **4(3)**: p. 167-76.
- Whalen, F.J., *Cost justification of decentralized pharmaceutical services for the emergency room.* American journal of hospital pharmacy., 1981. **38(5)**: p. 684-7.
- High, J.L., A.W. Gill, and D.J. Silvernale, *Clinical pharmacy in an emergency medicine setting.* Contemporary pharmacy practice., 1981. **4(4)**: p. 227-30.
- Powell, M.F., D.K. Solomon, and R.A. McEachen, *Twenty-four hour emergency pharmaceutical services.* American journal of hospital pharmacy., 1985. **42(4)**: p. 831-5.

## References

- Kasuya, A., et al., *Clinical pharmacy on-call program in the emergency department.* The American journal of emergency medicine., 1986. **4(5)**: p. 464-7.
- Oddis, J.A., *Pharmaceutical services in the OR, ER, and ICU.* Resident and staff physician., 1986. **32(7)**: p. 8, 11.
- Schauben, J.L., *Comprehensive emergency pharmacy services.* Topics in hospital pharmacy management / Aspen Systems Corporation., 1988. **8(3)**: p. 20-8.
- Laivenieks, N., et al., *Clinical pharmacy services provided to an emergency department.* The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy., 1992. **45(3)**: p. 113-5.
- Blazys, D. and W.C.T.U.S.A.e.a.c. St Mary's Hospital, *Reducing errors with PYXIS.* Journal of emergency nursing: JEN : official publication of the Emergency Department Nurses Association., 2002. **28(2)**: p. 147.

## References

- Thomasset, K.B., R. Faris, and B.M.C.E.N.S.A.B.H.B.M.A.U.S.A.k.t.b.o. Department of Pharmacy, *Survey of pharmacy services provision in the emergency department.* American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists., 2003. **60(15)**: p. 1561-4.
- Fairbanks, R.J.,Hays, D.P. et al., *Clinical pharmacy services in an emergency department.* American journal of health-system pharmacy : AJHP : official journal of the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists., 2004. **61(9)**: p. 934-7.
- Brown, M. and F.B.D.D.A.L.U.S.A.m.t.w.n. Bryan W Whitfield Memorial Hospital, *Medication safety issues in the emergency department.* Critical care nursing clinics of North America., 2005. **17(1)**: p. 65-9, xi.
- Fick, D.M., et al., *Updating the Beers criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults: results of a US consensus panel of experts.* Archives of internal medicine., 2003. **163(22)**: p. 2716-24.

## References

- Leape L, Cullen D, Dempsey Clapp M, Burdick E, Demonaco H, Ives Errickson J, Bates D. 1999. Pharmacist participation on physician rounds and adverse drug events in the intensive care unit. *Journal of the American Medical Association *281(3):267.270.
- Risser DT, Rice MM, Salisbury ML, Simon R, Jay GD, Berns SD. 1999. The potential for improved teamwork to reduce medical errors in the emergency department. The MedTeams Research Consortium. *Annals of Emergency Medicine *34(3):373.383.
- IOM report on Emergency Care 2006