Pharmacy student impact on inappropriate prescribing of acid suppressive therapy

Author Department

Medicine; Pharmacy

Document Type

Article, Peer-reviewed

Publication Date

11-2011

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:

To examine the impact that having pharmacy students on internal medicine patient care teams had on inappropriate prescribing of acid suppressive therapy (AST).

METHODS:

In this observational cohort study, internal medicine patients who received care from teams with a pharmacy student were compared to patients who received care from teams without a pharmacy student. The primary endpoint was proportion of patients on inappropriate AST.

RESULTS:

The overall proportion of patients receiving inappropriate AST was 24.4%. There was no significant difference between patients seen by teams with a pharmacy student and those seen by teams without a pharmacy student. The proportion of patients discharged with new inappropriate AST prescriptions was lower after pharmacy student review, though not significantly (6.1% vs. 9.4%, p = 0.07). Pharmacy student reviews shortened the median duration of inappropriate AST by 1.5 days (6 vs. 8.5 days, p = 0.025).

CONCLUSIONS:

Patient care teams on which pharmacy students performed medication reviews had a reduced duration of inappropriate use of AST in patients.

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