Economic impact of medication management by clinical pharmacists in a urology department.

Introduction: The effectiveness of pharmaceutical care for urological inpatients has been shown, but this investigation aims to evaluate the economic benefit of clinical pharmacy services in a urology department. Return on investment (ROI) is to be determined. Material and methods: Medication management comprised pharmaceutical interventions (PIs) that were carried out by ward-based pharmacists following analysis of drug-related problems. Each pharmaceutical intervention was assigned a probability value indicating the likelihood of an adverse drug event (ADE) occurring without intervention. Assuming that each ADE results in a longer hospital stay, the average case costs for the urology department per day were used as the potential savings. Results: A total of 295 PIs were documented by the clinical pharmacists within 1,495 included patient days. The recorded acceptance rate by physicians was 77.97%. PIs prevented approximately 60 ADE and thus a potential extension of hospital stay of 132 days. Clinical pharmacy services resulted in avoided costs totaling €112,256, thus giving a ROI of 881%. Conclusions: The present investigation demonstrates the economic benefits of clinical pharmacy services for a surgical specialty, namely urology. PIs improve medication safety. Ward-based pharmacists have become a vital part of the urology care team.