SYSTEM FOR EXCHANGING INFORMATION AMONG PHARMACISTS IN DIFFERENT PRACTICE ENVIRONMENTS

A system for exchanging patient information among hospital, long-term- care (LTC), and ambulatory care pharmacies is described, and the influ ence of that system on pharmacist interventions is reported. Study sit es consisted of three ambulatory care pharmacies, one LTC pharmacy, an d one hospital in a small Midwestern city. Meetings were held by clini cians, the investigators, and hospital administrators to plan the info rmation-exchange system. From January through lune 1996, patients admi tted to the hospital were checked to see if they came from a participa ting (source) pharmacy; if so, they were randomly assigned to experime ntal and control groups. The hospital requested preadmission informati on from the source pharmacy for experimental group patients and did no t do so for control patients. After the information arrived, the hospi tal pharmacists could use it to identify and document drug therapy pro blems. When an experimental group patient was discharged, the hospital sent information to the appropriate source pharmacy. A total of 156 p atients were enrolled in the study. Complete information transfer occu rred for 75% of experimental group patients. Significantly more experi mental group patients than control patients had at least one inhospita l pharmacist intervention recorded. Similarly, in the ambulatory care pharmacies (but not the LTC pharmacy) significantly more interventions per patient were documented for the experimental group. Hospital and ambulatory care pharmacists documented more interventions for patients about whom information had been supplied than for patients for whom t hat information had not been supplied. No difference in intervention r ates was observed for LTC pharmacists, who were already being supplied information by the LTC facilities about patients discharged from the hospital.