환자안전을 위한 병원약사의 중재활동 고찰

Hospital Pharmacists’ Intervention for Patient Safety: A Review

Since medication errors occur frequently in hospital, pharmacists have been expected to expand their roles to enhance patient safety. However, hospital pharmacists’ intervention for patient safety have not been fully understood. This study aimed to briefly introduce hospital pharmacists’ intervention in South Korea and an empirical example in a tertiary care hospital. A quick literature search was performed from 2015 to 2019 using domestic electronic databases: KMbase, KoreaMed, KISS, KiSTi, and NDSL. Hospital pharmacists’ intervention was summarized with regard to intervention type, target patient groups, and outcomes of intervention. For the empirical case, pharmacists’ intervention in Pusan National University Hospital was reviewed. We reviewed 23 articles and intervention was classified as multidisciplinary team care, medication assessment, medication counseling. Most studies reported that hospital pharmacists’ intervention prevent the inappropriate drug use and lead to favorable clinical outcomes. In Pusan National University Hospital, pharmacists developed drug safety program, improved dispensing process, and provided information about adverse drug reaction to the patient. This study provides evidence that hospital pharmacists play various types of intervention for patient safety. To ensure patient safety, we need to expand and corroborate hospital pharmacists’ activity in depth and further work is needed in this aspects.