Abstract
Purpose
To describe quantitatively the impact on physician efficiency when an Emergency Medicine
Clinical Pharmacist (EMCP) is available to Emergency Department (ED) physicians while
working under a collaborative care agreement in a Michigan-based Health System.
Methods
Four EMCPs each logged and categorized their time during 14 ten hour shifts, for a
total of 56 shifts or 560 total hours worked. There were nine categories observed
including: culture call back, urine, blood, or other culture follow up, antibiotic
changes, patient call-backs, pharmacy call backs, critically ill, and general questions.
Results
EMCPs saved ED physicians an average of 75 min per shift, with the highest yield categories
being general questions (25.2 min per shift (mps), standard error (SE) = 2.67), critically
ill patient service (11.5 mps, SE = 2.66), and urine culture follow-ups (11.3 mps,
SE = 1.05).
Conclusions
EMCPs in the ED save physicians a significant amount of time per shift, and categorically
the most time saved was in fielding general questions, time spent with critically
ill patients, and following up on urine cultures. The time saved by physicians could
translate into more patients seen per shift.
Keywords
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: December 17, 2018
Accepted:
December 17,
2018
Received in revised form:
December 6,
2018
Received:
August 21,
2018
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Published by Elsevier Inc.
