Trends in pharmacists' medication order review in French hospitals from 2006 to 2009: analysis of pharmacists' interventions from the Act-IP© website observatory

WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVES: The French Society of Clinical Pharmacy has developed a website, named Act-IP©, enabling hospital pharmacists to document and analyse pharmacists' interventions (PIs) proposed during medication order review when a drug-related problem is detected. This study analyses PIs documented in Act-IP© and assesses factors associated with physicians' acceptance of PIs. METHODS: PIs documented into Act-IP© over a 30-month period were analysed. Independent predictors of physicians' acceptance were assessed using multiple logistic regression. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: A total of 34,522 PIs were registered by 201 pharmacists working in 59 hospitals. PIs were mostly related to 'dose adjustment' (25%), 'drug discontinuation' (20%) and 'drug switch' (19%). Of the 43,343 medications involved, 28% targeted drugs acting on the central nervous system, 17% anti-infective drugs and 16% cardiovascular drugs. Sixty-eight per cent of PIs were accepted by physicians (15% refusals and 17% non-assessable). Physicians' acceptance was significantly associated with 1/ drug group: antineoplastics and immunomodulators (OR = 2.29, CI 951.94-2.69), anti-infectives (OR = 1.19, CI 95 1.11-1.28); 2/ type of intervention: drug switch (OR = 1.54, CI 95 1.43-1.65), drug discontinuation (OR = 1.38, CI 95 1.29-1.48), administration modality optimization (OR = 1.19, CI 95 1.11-1.29), addition of a new drug (OR = 1.12, CI 95 1.00-1.24); 3/ ward specialty: paediatrics (OR = 1.83, CI 95 1.24-2.70) and intensive care (OR = 1.34, CI 95 1.10-1.64); 4/ level of pharmacist integration in the ward: higher when the pharmacist is regularly in the ward compared with occasionally (OR = 0.74, CI 95 0.70-0.79) or never (OR = 0.68, CI 95 0.60-0.75) present. WHAT IS NEW AND CONCLUSION: This study highlights the role of routine pharmacist review of medication orders to prevent drug-related problems and gives new insights for a successful collaboration between physicians and pharmacists.