부산대학교 도서관

Background The COVID-19 pandemic created systemic challenges in patient care delivery. Aim To evaluate the impact on pharmacist activities during pharmacist participation in ward rounds via telehealth, compared to physical attendance. Method A single-centre, retrospective cohort study conducted from 18th Aug through 26th Oct 2020. Patients admitted to COVID and non-COVID general medical teams were included. Pharmacists attended ward rounds via telehealth for COVID teams; physical attendance continued for non-COVID teams. Telehealth involved pharmacists interacting with clinicians and patients virtually via videoconferencing whilst stationed remotely on the ward. Routine clinical pharmacy activities during telehealth ward rounds were compared to those during face-to-face ward rounds using comparative statistics. Results Among the 1230 patients included (762 COVID, 468 non-COVID), pharmacist participation in telehealth ward rounds demonstrated significantly more documented activities compared with face-to-face rounds (mean 6.7 vs 4.9 per patient per day, p < 0.001). The telehealth cohort exhibited a higher number of orders placed via pharmacy-partnered medication charting (3.0 vs 2.4 per patient per day, p < 0.001), medication orders verified (2.3 vs 1.1, p < 0.001), and documented pharmacy notes (0.6 vs 0.2, p < 0.001). No significant difference was observed in medication requests processed (0.4 vs 0.4, p = 738), whilst non-COVID patients had more discharge prescription items generated (0.3 vs 0.7, p < 0.001). Conclusion Pharmacist involvement in medical ward rounds via telehealth enabled the ongoing provision of advanced clinical pharmacy services to inpatients in isolation rooms during the COVID-19 pandemic. This approach resulted in a greater number of pharmacy activities during telehealth ward rounds compared to standard in-person attendance.
Author(s): Meng Yap [sup.1], Gail Edwards [sup.1], Harry Gibbs [sup.2], Harvey Newnham [sup.2], Nicole Hancock [sup.2], Erica Y. Tong [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) https://ror.org/04scfb908, grid.267362.4, 0000 0004 0432 5259, Pharmacy [...]