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Patrick McDonnell,
PharmD., and colleagues George Miller, RPh and John Woodward, MD
with several of Dr. McDonnell’s pharmacy interns received the
Delaware Valley Health Care Council's 2005 Medication Safety
Award for a blood clot prevention program they implemented at
Jeanes Hospital, part of Temple University Health System.
McDonnell, associate professor of clinical pharmacy, also
presented the project at the recent American College of Clinical
Pharmacists meeting. Former students that initiated the project
were Cynthia Oliva, PharmD Class of 2004 and Dennis Constan,
PharmD Class of 2005. He directs the students on clinical
rotation at Jeanes Hospital with an emphasis on medication
safety and the study of patients hospitalized because of
drug-induced problems.
McDonnell and students studied how pharmacists could impact
physicians in preventing blood clots, the leading cause of
preventable disease and death in hospital patients. First the
group identified patients at risk for blood clots and made
recommendations to physicians to which they had 48 hours to
respond. Initial baseline prophylaxis rates for
venothromboembolism or VTE (blood clots) was ~ 40%; After two
months of education, continued intervention and increased
awareness, rates of prophylaxis for VTE rose to nearly 70%.
Concurrently rates of blood clots in patients occurring in
patients during their hospitalization also declined
significantly. They concluded that pharmacists can play a
significant role in decreasing the incidence of blood clots by
participating in interdisciplinary processes in disease state
management.
“Results from our program led to a hospital-wide initiation of a
screening tool that is part of every patient's chart when they
are admitted to the hospital,” said McDonnell, who expects that
programs like these will be adopted by the national hospital
accrediting agency as an additional means to improve patient
safety.
Seated: Inga Galunic,RPH Director of Pharmacy Jeanes
Hospital
Patrick McDonnell, PharmD. Associate Prof Clinical Pharmacy
Standing: Melissa Ranieri, PharmD (also former TUSP alum);
Kseniya Timofeyeva, PharmD Intern; John Woodward, MD. Chair of
Pharmacy and Therepeutics at Jeanes; Laeticia Ifeanyi, PharmD
Intern; George Miller, RPh, Clinical Director of Pharmacy
(Jeanes); Laila Elkadi, RPh, Distributive Director of Pharmacy;
Natalia Wesley, PharmD (also former TUSP alum); Connie Byron,
RPh.
George Miller, RPh, Clinical Director of Pharmacy (Jeanes) |
