Abstract Complex Outpatient Antimicrobial Therapy (COpAT) offers a safe and effective alternative to intravenous therapy for select infections and reduces hospital length of stay and vascular access complications. However, prolonged oral therapy requires monitoring due to the risk of adverse effects, with infectious diseases pharmacists well‐positioned to lead such services. In November 2023, a pharmacist‐led virtual clinic was trialled at an Australian tertiary hospital to monitor patients on prolonged oral antimicrobials. Over 9 months, the COpAT pharmacist (0.2 full‐time equivalent FTE) conducted 103 telephone reviews for 46 patients, leading to over 100 interventions, including managing 6 moderate–severe adverse events and preventing 3 emergency department visits or admissions. No clinic‐related adverse outcomes occurred. Financial analysis showed that Activity‐Based Funding revenue offset labour costs, supporting the sustainability of the clinic. This pharmacist‐led COpAT service demonstrated clinical and economic benefits while improving patient safety and reducing healthcare utilisation. This project was exempt due to the local policy requirements that constitute research by the East Metropolitan Health Service Human Research Ethics Committee and registered as a quality improvement project by Royal Perth Bentley Group's Governance, Evidence, Knowledge, Outcomes (Reference no: GEKO54641). The justification for this exemption was as follows: the project only utilised anonymised data collected as part of routine clinical practice, presented minimal patient risk, and conforms with the National Health and Medical Research Council Ethical considerations in quality assistance and evaluation activities .
Masoum et al. (Tue,) studied this question.