Development of a comprehensive clinical pharmacy workload documentation system.

Abstract

The purpose of this project was to develop a workload documentation system which captures the clinical activities of the pharmacist, as well as the pharmacist's impact on the patient's drug therapy outcomes and costs. The documentation system consists of three sections: clinical activities, clinical effectiveness indicators, and cost-effectiveness indicators. In addition to those established by the National Hospital Productivity Improvement Program-Pharmacy Workload Measurement System, other indicators are incorporated to more accurately reflect the pharmacists' daily clinical activities. Clinical effectiveness indicators of patient outcomes include the number and type of drug-related problems identified and resolved and the number of therapeutic interventions made and accepted. Cost-effectiveness is measured by pharmacists' interventions on 14 focused areas of drug therapy. Compliance with daily documentation is facilitated by use of pocket-sized cards for data collection and retrieval. This documentation system has been implemented since December 1990. Quarterly reports submitted to the Director identify changes and trends in workload. Information is used for staff justification, impact assessment of clinical service provided, identification of needs for staff development and planning future clinical directions. In order to enhance the efficiency of documentation and data analysis, future plans include computerization and evaluation of the frequency of data collection.