항암치료에서 약사처방중재의 경제적 편익분석

Assessment of Economic Benefit of Clinical Pharmacy Services in Oncology

This study analyzed the economic benefits of pharmacists’ prescription intervention in appropriate chemotherapeutic efficacy and safety. We analyzed the types of prescription interventions and the severities of prescription errors by reviewing electronic medical record and intervention reports for anticancer patients from May 1st 2013 through December 31st 2014. Total of 114,536 prescriptions were reviewed during the study period and 3,305 (2.9%) prescription interventions were conducted. The evaluation of the economic values for prescription arbitration was calculated by the amount of prevention of drug loss, the risk avoidance cost against inappropriate prescriptions, and the cost of preventing unnecessary preparations. The labor cost of pharmacists for prescription interventions was 15,758,479 won. When we estimated the savings due to pharmacist’s prescription intervention, the cost of risk avoidance of using the Probability of Harm (POH) resulted from inappropriate prescriptions was estimated to be 2,514,652,575 won. The prevention cost of loss was 586,560,148 won, whereas reduction cost of the unnecessary preparation was 3,944,242 won. Consequently, the net benefit of clinical pharmacy services in oncology during 20 months was estimated to be 3,089,398,486 won when we used the method of POH. Overall, the pharmacist’s prescription arbitration appeared to be beneficial not only for the patient’s safety but also for the economic benefits.