Background and importance Patients hospitalised within the intensive care unit (ICU) are prescribed almost twice as many medications compared with patients hospitalised within other areas of the hospital. This increases the likelihood of possible drug interactions as well as medication errors.¹

Aim and objectives The aim of this study was to assess the expected role and perceived value of a ward based pharmacist in the ICU, as deemed by critical care physicians and nurses at an acute general teaching hospital prior to the introduction of the service.

Material and methods The pre-service questionnaires developed by Portelli (2018), targeting nurses and physicians, respectively, were adapted to portray the requirements of a critical care setting and validated for content by an expert panel. The validated tools were disseminated among ICU based physicians and nurses. The responses obtained were analysed descriptively and by content analysis.

Results The vast majority of nurses gave a score of 4 or higher on a 5 point Likert scale (with 5=essential) when asked whether they felt there was a need for an inhouse pharmacist in the ICU. Similarly, the majority of physicians gave a score of 4 or higher on the same 5 point Likert scale when posed the same question.

Conclusion and relevance The delivery of direct, proactive, patient centred care by pharmacists has been correlated with both actual and perceived improvement in patient outcomes.^{2 3} Most of the respondents were positive that the presence of a pharmacist in the ICU would improve the outcomes for patient safety and better quality care.

References and/or acknowledgements

1. Richter A, Bates I, Thacker M, et al. Impact of the introduction of a specialist critical care pharmacist on the level of pharmaceutical care provided to the critical care unit. Int J Pharm Pract 2016;24:253–61.

2. Preslaski CR, Lat I, MacLaren R, et al. Pharmacist contributions as members of the multidisciplinary ICU team. Chest 2013;144:1687–95.

3. Mailman JF, Semchuk W. Pharmacists’ roles in critical care: Environmental scan of current practices in Canadian intensive care units. Can J Hosp Pharm 2018;71:215–16.

Conflict of interest No conflict of interest