Journal of Pharmaceutics & Drug Delivery ResearchISSN: 2325-9604

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Improving the utilization pattern and decreasing the direct cost of albumin by pharmacist interventions at an oncology hospital in Iran


Maral Rashidi, Iman Karimzadeh, Soheila Zareifar, Maral Rashidi and Maryam Sheibanifard

Shiraz University School of Pharmacy, Iran

: J Pharm Drug Deliv Res

Abstract


Implementing standard treatment guidelines and drug utilization evaluation strategies can be effective in improving the pattern of medications. This study aimed to evaluate pharmacist interventions in decreasing the cost of albumin as one of the high-cost and overused medications in a teaching oncology hospital in southwest of Iran. A prospective, interventional study was conducted during 9 months from May 2015 to January 2016 in all wards of Amir Oncology Hospital affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran. Indication checklist draft of albumin was prepared by clinical pharmacists via reviewing relevant drug information references including Up-to-date and Micromedex. These drafts were then revised and validated by the hematology-oncology faculty members. The physician team was requested to fill out this checklist at the time of ordering albumin. Checklists were then examined by the trained pharmacists. They were allowed to reject the orders if there was no indication or rational for giving albumin. Albumin was ordered for 129 patients (77 males and 52 females) aged 33.24 ± 25.75 years during the study period. Among them 10.51% were inappropriate and not approved by the pharmacists. Compared to the pre-intervention period (from August 2014 to April 2015), the total number of administered albumin in the postintervention period has decreased by 42.6% (from 1570 to 901 vials). The total direct cost reduction of albumin was calculated to be around 25,136 USD. Thus pharmacists can be actively involved in improving the utilization pattern and decreasing the cost of high-price medications in hospitalized oncology settings.

Biography


Maral Rashidi received Pharmacy degree at Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Iran. She has finished her BS degree in Biochemistry and is currently undertaking pre-registration clinical trainings at designated pharmacies affiliated to Shiraz University. She is also conducting research in the fields of clinical and herbal pharmacology. She has gathered data on 100 rare herbal medicines merely found in Iran and their therapeutic applications (To be published). Considerable part of her work is devoted to clinical pharmacogenetics, chronopharmacology, and approaches to the extrapolation of experimental data to the clinical trials.

Email: maral_ra@yahoo.com

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