Process for preventing or identifying and resolving problems in drug therapy

A consistent process for preventing or identifying and resolving problems related to drug therapy is described. The process was originally developed to help pharmacy students focus on drug therapy issues during their clinical clerkship rotations. The first version of this approach to quality improvement consisted of lists of questions designed to prompt the student to prevent or identify and correct drug therapy problems. Because the learning style of some students is more visual, the questions were incorporated into flow charts. Students at a community hospital used the flow charts during their rotations through the critical care, medical-surgical, and psychiatric units, and the process appeared to result in improvements in the quality of care and in savings in the cost of care. As a result, a staff development and training project was begun to determine if staff pharmacists who use this process to evaluate drug therapy will begin to provide pharmaceutical care. This sort of transitional model of pharmaceutical care may expedite global implementation of the new practice philosophy. Flow charts encouraging a uniform approach to the prevention or identification and correction of drug therapy problems were developed for use by pharmacy students and generalist pharmacists.