Abstract
Objective: Pharmacotherapy for patients with breast cancer is now administered in an ambulatory setting, and we assume that patients would benefit if clinical pharmacists perform all stages of pharmacological intervention up to prescription in an ambulatory setting as well, especially for medicines requiring chronic administration and those that affect the patient’s life, such as hormonal therapy. A thorough understanding of guidelines and the clinical reports is paramount for effective pharmacological intervention. Since ambulatory care clinical pharmacists are involved in the treatment of a large number of patients, effective utilization of evidence outlined in guidelines and clinical reports is difficult. Therefore, we developed a system for utilizing evidence as outlined in guidelines and clinical reports with a focus on hormonal therapy for patients with breast cancer.
Methods: A database based on the 2013 version of the clinical practice guidelines for breast cancer and clinical reports was constructed using Microsoft® Access 2010.
Result: Clicking on a guideline algorithm according to the disease stage of the patient results in a clinical question being displayed, and the ambulatory care clinical pharmacist is immediately able to determine suitable medications based on clinical reports that are run through the database.
Conclusion: With the use of this database, which includes information required for pharmacological intervention, ambulatory care clinical pharmacists could care for a large number of patients.
