Position paper on critical care pharmacy services

Objective. To identify and describe the scope of practice that characterize s the critical care pharmacist and critical care pharmacy services. Specifi cally, the goals were to define the level of clinical practice and speciali zed skills characterizing the critical care pharmacist as clinician, educat or, researcher, and manager; and to recommend fundamental, desirable, and o ptimal pharmacy services and personnel requirements for the provision of ph armaceutical care to critically ill patients. Hospitals having comprehensiv e resources as well as those with more limited resources were considered. Data Sources. Consensus of critical care pharmacists from institutions of v arious sizes providing critical care services within several types of pharm acy practice models was obtained, including community-based and academic pr actice settings. Existing guidelines and literature describing pharmacy pra ctice and drug use processes were reviewed and adapted for the critical car e setting. Conclusions. By combining the strengths and expertise of critical care phar macy specialists with existing supporting literature, these recommendations define the level of clinical practice and specialized skills that characte rize the critical care pharmacist as clinician, educator, researcher, and a dministrator. This position paper recommends fundamental, desirable, and op timal pharmacy services as well as personnel requirements for the provision of pharmaceutical care to critically ill patients.