Pharmacists on rounding teams reduce preventable adverse drug events in hospital general medicine units.
Supported by past research, little debate exists about the role pharmacists can play in reducing medication errors in the inpatient setting. Furthermore, pharmacist participation in intensive care unit rounds has also been a cost-effective intervention in reducing medication errors. This study incorporated pharmacist participation into daily work rounds on a medical unit and demonstrated a 78% reduction in the rate of preventable adverse drug events (ADEs). Nearly 100% of the pharmacist recommendations changed management as the most common changes included dosing issues and adding a new drug to therapy. This study supports previous research but in a new setting that pharmacist involvement at the time of order writing dramatically improves patient outcomes.