Browsing by Subject "osastofarmasia"
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(2014)Clinical pharmacy is defined as a service which a pharmacist provides for example to a ward or a medical center. In Finland clinical pharmacy (or ward pharmacy) was started in the 1980s but it hasn't expanded widely until at the end of the 2010s. Need for cost-effectiveness research has been under discussion because of increasing health care costs. This kind of research helps to choose the most effective services. Naturally also clinical pharmacy is under effectiveness consideration. A systematic review was conducted considering the cost-effectiveness research of clinical pharmacy. The aim of this review was to find clinical pharmacy interventions which have been proven costeffective. Literature research found 7 articles. Three of these studied pharmacokinetic patient surveillance and in the rest four articles pharmacist worked as a part of multidisciplinary team. In six studies the cost savings were greater than the costs. The other part of this study was about clinical pharmacy in the hospital district of Helsinki and Uusimaa (HUS). Data was collected from Helsinki University Central Hospital (HUCH) wards which had had clinical pharmacy services during the years 2009-2012. Collected data included clinical pharmacy costs and amount of work gained with those costs, drug consumption, drug waste amounts, amounts of drugs returned to HUS-pharmacy and amounts of HaiPro-reports. Collected data was presented as a time series. The costs of clinical pharmacy had followed the trend of other health care costs during 2009-2012. Wards with clinical pharmacy had somewhat larger amount of drug waste than the other wards. Amounts of drugs returned to the pharmacy were greater in the wards with clinical pharmacy. The amount of HaiPro-reports grew by a factor of 15 from 2009 to 2012. Especially amounts of drug administration errors and errors in writing down prescriptions were greater in clinical pharmacy wards. The data in this thesis describes only a small part of clinical pharmacists' work in the HUCH area. Making final conclusions about the cost-effectiveness of clinical pharmacy isn't possible with this data. The systematic review can give ideas to improve clinical pharmacy in HUS in a more cost-effective direction.
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(2013)During the past few decades the focus of the pharmacy profession has shifted from medicinal products towards ensuring the welfare of the patient. The concept of pharmaceutical care emphasizes that the role of the pharmacist is to ensure the quality and safety of pharmaceutical therapy in collaboration with the patient. The concept of clinical pharmacy, on the other hand, highlights that the pharmacist should take the responsibility of the efficiency, safety and cost efficiency of the patient's pharmaceutical treatment together with other health-care professionals. Patient centered pharmacy services have been increased in Finnish hospitals and health care-centers during the last 10 years, for example, in the form of pharmacy services provided on the wards. Previous studies have shown that Finnish hospital pharmacists want to develop and increase clinical pharmacy services in hospitals but feel they are not competent enough to manage them. To develop and increase the number of clinical pharmacy services it is important to ensure the pharmacy professionals have support to their continuing professional development. The General Level Framework (GLF) has been developed in the UK to support the professional development of pharmacy professionals and its value has been shown in various studies. The aim of this study was to give information of the state of Finnish hospital pharmacy and its development needs as perceived by Finnish hospital pharmacists, and to investigate how the GLF can be utilized in Finnish hospital pharmacy. The study was conducted using two different research methods: a semi-structured interview was designed to investigate hospital pharmacists' perceptions of hospital pharmacy, it's development needs and utilization of the GLF; in addition, hospital pharmacists selfassessed their clinical pharmacy related competencies using the GLF. All of the participants of the study were participants of a clinical pharmacy course by University of Helsinki. In total 11 hospital pharmacists took part in the interview. Also 41 pharmacists self-assessed their competencies in clinical pharmacy using the GLF: eight of them completed the self-assessment twice with a six month period between the assessments. The interviewed pharmacists felt that the pharmacy curriculum should focus more on the skills and competencies needed in hospital pharmacy. On the other hand, they felt that the tasks of hospital pharmacists did not necessarily allow them to use their actual knowledge of pharmacy. They perceived that the future of hospital pharmacy lies in services of clinical pharmacy, although they felt that they were not competent enough to manage them. The GLF self-assessment showed that the clinical competencies of the participants were average, and there was no change in the competence of the participants during the six month period. However, the interviewed pharmacists felt that the GLF can be used as a tool for support the hospital pharmacists' professional development and continuing professional development in clinical pharmacy. They also perceived that there is a need for further studies on the clinical pharmacy services and their benefits, and that the task distribution of health care professionals in hospitals must be re-considered. With these actions, the challenges hindering the development and increase of clinical pharmacy services in Finnish hospitals could be overcome. They described that the greatest challenges to overcome were prejudices against pharmacist working on the wards and a lack of resources. In order to develop and increase clinical pharmacy services in Finnish hospitals and other health-care organizations further reseacrh on the benefits of clinical pharmacy should be conducted. It must also be ensured that all health-care professionals and decision makers are aware of the studies already made about clinical pharmacy and its benefits. The skill-mix of health care professionals taking part in a patient's treatment must be reconsidered in order to ensure that the patient receives the best, most efficient and safest possible medicinal care. The GLF can be used as a tool to define the role of a clinical pharmacist in Finland. There is a need for more clinical pharmacy education so that Finnish pharmacists can feel competent enough to manage clinical pharmacy tasks. The GLF can be used as a tool to support the professional development and continuing professional development also in Finland.
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(2012)In Finland first pharmacists started to work on wards in 1980s and 1990s. Ward pharmacy increased mainly in consequence of the lack of nurses. Common tasks were taking care of drug logistics (stock control), dispensing drugs to patient specific doses, preparing and diluting intravenous drugs and providing drug information to ward personnel. During the 2000s, ward pharmacy services have been increasing a lot. New tasks are, e.g., reviewing medications and prescriptions, medication counselling, and taking part in medical rounds. However, the tasks are still rather logistics compared to the United States and the United Kingdom where a pharmacist has an established role in a multiprofessional team. Internationally it has been proved that it is possible to achieve decreased and enhanced quality of care and patient safety with hospital clinical pharmacy services. The aim of this study was to explore the extent and benefits of ward pharmacy services in Finland. An online survey was conducted by sending the invitations to the chiefs of hospital pharmacies (n = 24) and medical dispensaries (n = 94) by using the e-mail register of the University of Helsinki and Satefa (Finnish Association of hospital and health centre pharmacists). Before compiling the questionnaire six theme interviews were conducted to set up the questionnaire. The survey respondents were asked to submit information about development projects and research reports if they had explored the benefits of ward pharmacy services. The response rate was 60 % (n/N = 72/118). A half of the respondents (n = 36) reported having ward pharmacy services in their units. Benefits were explored in 12 units and nine project reports were received. Altogether 157 pharmacists were working in 242 wards at the time of the survey in spring 2011. Most common tasks were providing drug information to ward personnel, drug logistics and dispensing drugs to patient specific doses. Patient oriented tasks were increased, including prescription and medication reviews, taking part on medical rounds and medication counselling gave patient information were reported. The most reported benefits on ward pharmacy services were increased multiprofessional collaboration, saved working time of nurses and physicians, decreased drug costs and decreased number of medication errors and/or enhanced reporting habits and developed functions on wards. Respondents also believed that ward pharmacy services can have positive impact on length of stay, readmission and hospitalisations and mortality during hospitalization, but these benefits were not demonstrated by studies. In the future it would be important to develop the Finnish ward pharmacy services by following the international example and the principles of pharmaceutical care. The help of automation technology and pharmacy technicians should be exploited more in drug logistics. The economical and patient related outcomes of new clinical and patient oriented services should be proved in Finland and the results of the researches and projects made in hospital and health centres should be published more.
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