Identifying and prioritizing acute care pharmacy outcome measures using an iterative clinician survey

Purpose As the healthcare model in the United States transitions to encompass value-based care, it is increasingly important to capture pharmacist impact on medication-related patient outcomes to justify clinical pharmacists’ presence within interdisciplinary teams. Therefore, the aims of this project were (1) to apply a previously developed standardized process for identifying and prioritizing outcome measures related to acute care pharmacy practice and (2) to identify pharmacist activities and interventions associated with select outcome measures. Methods Pharmacists, physicians, and advanced practice providers completed a 3-round survey. The survey aimed to create a complete list of outcome measures impacted by acute care pharmacy practice; obtain consensus on whether each listed outcome is impacted by acute care pharmacy practice; and assess measures based on criteria including feasibility, importance, validity, and pharmacist impact using a 5-point Likert scale and free-response items. Survey respondents also provided pharmacist activities and interventions related to each outcome measure. The primary outcome of this study was the ranked list of outcome measures related to acute care pharmacy practice. The secondary outcome included pharmacist activities and interventions related to each outcome measure. Results The results of this study include a list of 15 prioritized outcome measures and a list of 28 related pharmacist activities and interventions. Conclusion The outcome measure identification and prioritization process was successfully adapted and applied to acute care pharmacy practice to produce a prioritized list of clinical outcome measures related to acute care pharmacy practice. These results will be used to direct efforts towards capturing and tracking related pharmacist activities.