Documenting pharmacists' interventions on a hospital's mainframe computer system

The development and implementation of a code that enables pharmacists to document their clinical interventions in the hospital's computerized patient records is described. To allow data to be entered in patient records from terminals throughout the hospital that are linked to the mainframe computer, a code was developed to summarize each pharmacist recommendation. The coded information is added to the computer entry for the specific drug requiring intervention. A computer program was developed inhouse for generating daily reports of the pharmacist interventions. During an initial 25-day study period, 300 interventions were documented; house staff physicians accepted the pharmacists' recommendations in 257 (85.7%) of these interventions. An additional 17 (6%) of the interventions resulted from physicians' requests for pharmacists' recommendations. In addition to review of all pharmacist clinical interventions, this system allows review of a specific target drug to determine compliance with institutional drug-use guidelines. Through use of the computer program developed at this hospital, information that documents pharmacists' clinical services can be entered directly into patients' records on the hospital's mainframe computer system and retrieved as useful reports.