Establishment of a quality indicator for pharmaceutical care

Objective

To establish a quality indicator for pharmaceutical care in an integral system for personalised medication dispensing (ISPMD) with electronic prescription.

Methods

Descriptive transversal study. Period: 2007. On a daily basis, we revised the pharmaceutical treatment of patients admitted to hospital units with ISPMD. Study variables: a) suitability of pharmaceutical interventions: important or very important; b) acceptance of those interventions. The LASER® method was used to identify patients with improvement opportunities.

Results

In absolute terms (mean [SD]): important pharmaceutical interventions, 26.6 (14.8); very important, 31.5 (24.6); acceptance, 57.5 (25.9). Percentages (95% CI): pharmaceutical interventions: important, 33.7 (9.3–58.0); very important, 39.80 (17.7–62.2); acceptance, 72.6 (64.7–80.5).

Conclusions

Implementation of the quality indicator for pharmaceutical care allowed us to evaluate the clinical significance and the acceptance rate of the pharmaceutical care being provided.