Impact of Pharmacist Intervention(s) on Health-Related Outcomes at Worksite Clinics

Indianapolis, IN

Currently, there is minimal primary literature outlining the degree of impact that pharmacists within worksite clinics have on clinical outcomes. The primary objective of this research is to determine changes in clinical outcomes before and after an encounter with the pharmacist, as well as to quantify and describe pharmacist interventions. Secondary objectives include providing insight on the patient populations encountered at the worksite clinics and outlining the role of a clinical pharmacist within this setting. Patients established with physician providers at two St. Vincent Worksite Wellness Centers may be referred to the clinical pharmacist for chronic disease management of pre-diabetes, diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, tobacco cessation, asthma, or COPD. They may also be referred or self-referred for medication therapy management. Using the electronic medical record, baseline patient data, reasons for referral, pharmacist interventions, and lab results were tracked over 12 months. Clinical parameters collected include: weight, body mass index, blood pressure, A1C, lipid panels, and 10-Year ASCVD Risk. At the conclusion of the study period, the pharmacist met with 43 patients and had 91 separate encounters. The pharmacist provided 68 total medication recommendations, 70.6% of which were implemented. These recommendations served to optimize disease state management (66%), simplify medication therapy (19%), reduce costs (8%), and/or prevent side effects (8%). All measured parameters demonstrated a clinically significant improvement from baseline. Based on this study's results, implementation of a clinical pharmacist in a worksite clinic helps optimize therapy and disease state management to promote positive patient outcomes.