Chapter 7. The Clinical Pharmacist’s Role in Preventing Adverse Drug Events

A large literature documents the multiple roles clinical pharmacists can play in a variety of health care settings. Much of this literature focuses on measures of impact not directly relevant to this Report – eg, economic benefits, patient compliance, and drug monitoring. More recently, systems-based analyses of medication errors and adverse drug events (ADEs) have drawn attention to the impact clinical pharmacists can exert on the quality and safety of medication use. In this chapter, we review the evidence supporting the premise that direct participation of pharmacists’ in clinical care reduces medication errors and ADEs in hospitalized and ambulatory patients.