Limitations
on health care resources necessitate careful focus on activities
that lead to the greatest improvement in patient outcomes. Despite
the importance of aligning pharmacists’ time with activities deriving
the most impact, there is a paucity of literature on the correlations
between pharmacists’ perceptions of the impact of their activities,
how they actually spend their time and how these align with published
evidence of impacts on patient outcomes.
Objective: To reveal hospital pharmacists’ perceptions of the
impacts of their clinical activities and to characterize the correlation
between the activities performed and both their perceptions of
and the published evidence for their impacts on patient care.
Methods: Observational qualitative interviews and quantitative
questionnaires were conducted with each participant (N=21) to
characterize their work day and determine their perceptions of
the impact of their activities. A systematic literature review
catalogued pharmacists’ activities with impact on patient outcomes.
Primary endpoint: degree of correlation in three pair-wise comparisons
between pharmacists’ perceptions of impact, time allotted to activities,
and published evidence of impact.
Results: Pharmacists’ time spent was positively and significantly
correlated with their perception of impact (P=0.037) but not with
the published evidence of impact (in either of the two analytical
scenarios). The correlation between published evidence and pharmacists’
perceptions of impacts was on the threshold of statistical significance
with a moderate strength of association in one of the two analytical
scenarios used.
Conclusions: Pharmacists dedicate more of their clinical time
to activities they perceive to have greater impact. However, these
perceptions and their time allocation does not correlate well
with published evidence, and some misperceptions about impacts
deserve correction. More rigorous research is needed to quantify
the value of pharmacist services to the health care system, however
designing such studies to isolate the value of specific activities
will be challenging.
