Expanding the roles of outpatient pharmacists: effects on health services utilisation, costs, and patient outcomes.
BACKGROUND: In recent years pharmacists' roles have expanded from simply packaging and dispensing medications to working with other health care professionals and the public. OBJECTIVES: To assess the effects of expanding outpatient pharmacists' roles on health services utilisation, the costs of health services, and patient outcomes. SEARCH STRATEGY: We searched the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care Group specialised register, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Pharmline, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts and reference lists of articles up to December 1995. We also searched the published abstracts of three meetings and hand searched five journals and two bibliographies. SELECTION CRITERIA: Randomised trials, controlled clinical trials, controlled before-and-after studies and interrupted time series analyses of interventions comparing 1. Pharmacist services targeted at patients versus services delivered by other health professionals; 2. Pharmacist services targeted at patients versus no intervention; 3. Pharmacist services targeted at health professionals versus services delivered by other health professionals; and 4. Pharmacist services targeted at health professionals versus no intervention. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed study quality. MAIN RESULTS: Fourteen studies were included involving more than 1991 patients. In the one study identified for comparison 1 the relative changes in professional outcome measures ranged from a 24% increase in clinic visits to a 16% decrease in hospital admissions. Relative differences in patient outcome measures were not statistically significant. Seven studies were identified for comparison 2. Four measured process of care and demonstrated decreases in health services utilisation from -67% for hospital admissions to -564% for total ambulatory care visits, as well as decreases in the numbers and costs of drugs compared to control patients. Five measured patient outcomes and consistently reported improvements in the targeted patient condition. In the one study identified for comparison 3 the intervention delivered by the pharmacist was less successful than that delivered by physician counsellors in decreasing inappropriate antibiotic prescribing. All six studies identified for comparison 4 demonstrated that the pharmacist intervention produced the intended effect on physician prescribing practices. These studies did not measure patient outcomes. REVIEWER'S CONCLUSIONS: The limited number of studies analysed support the expanded roles of pharmacists in patient counselling and physician education. However, doubts about the generalisability of the studies, the poorly defined nature of the interventions tested, and the lack of studies including cost assessments and patient outcome data indicate that more rigorous research is needed to document the effects of outpatient pharmacist interventions.