Keynote 1: The hospital pharmacist’s impact on patient care

Abstract:

Patient care in the 21^st century is not a monopoly of the physician anymore. As more disciplines contribute to care around the patient’s bed the professional barriers will disappear. This has become a global vision of patient care. The consequence of this inter professional approach is that responsibilities must be shared. Every discipline has its own responsibility in the total patient care. A very important aspect is that all disciplines speak each other’s language, and, maybe more important, are willing to listen to each other. It is similar to the flight team when we get on an airplane: if the stewardess is aware that one of the engines is on fire she has to warn the pilot  about this and he (or she) cannot neglect this message by saying that it is just the stewardess who gave the message and ignore it for that reason. Similarly, we as healthcare workers all contribute to the patient’s welfare and process of getting better. The hospital pharmacist has his/her own responsibility, within the team of doctors and nurses and others, for selecting the right pharmacotherapy and identifying and monitoring for the intended outcomes.

Teaching goals:

• Identify the benefits of inter professional collaboration
• Discuss the meaning of a pharmacist’s responsibility and accountability in patient care
• Identify clinical and financial measures from the literature showing the impact of pharmacist’s input on an inter professional team

Learning Objectives:

After the presentation the participant should be able to:

• Discuss the shared responsibilities and accountabilities of a pharmacist on an inter professional team
• Identify the clinical benefits that pharmacists have provided to patients, physicians and nurses in various patient care populations, eg. Critical care, inpatient and outpatient internal medicine, cardiology, etc.
• List the steps in starting a clinical pharmacy service