Hospital Pharmacy - June 2017 - 437

McAllister and Chestnutt
demonstrating approximately US$320 000 per year in cost
avoidance associated with a single pharmacist in the ED.
Study limitations include inability to assess post-cardiac
arrest management making it unclear how much of an impact
the pharmacist may have had on survival. Also, cost avoidance data were not available on several commonly performed
clinical tasks, such as responding to medical emergencies, IV
to PO conversions, and discontinuation of unnecessary therapy. We presume these interventions would provide some
form of cost avoidance to the institution, though the magnitude of this was not assessed. Finally, the financial aspects of
this study are expressed in cost avoidance provided to the
institution and not in actual cost savings which would be
directly reflected on the institution's financial performance.
When trying to financially justify expanding clinical services,
cost avoidance data may be helpful for some institutions,
though other institutions may prefer to see actual cost savings
data instead which we were unable to obtain.
Authors' Note
At the time of the study, Dr. McAllister was a postgraduate year 1
pharmacy practice resident at Midtown Medical Center in
Columbus, Georgia. The results of this study were presented at the
Southeastern Residency Conference in Athens, Georgia, on April
26, 2012.

Author Contributions
MWM and JGC conceived and designed the study. MWM drafted
the manuscript and completed the data analysis, and both authors
contributed substantially to its revision. MWM takes responsibility
for the paper as a whole.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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https://www.acep.org/clinical—practice-management/clinical-pharmacistservices-in-the-emergency-department/ https://www.acep.org/clinical—practice-management/clinical-pharmacistservices-in-the-emergency-department/ https://www.acep.org/clinical—practice-management/clinical-pharmacistservices-in-the-emergency-department/ https://www.ismp.org/newsletters/acutecare/articles/20110210.asp https://www.ismp.org/newsletters/acutecare/articles/20110210.asp

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