Although clinical pharmacists participate in delivering safe and effective drug therapy to individual patients, there has so far been little assessment of the importance and quality of clinical pharmacy services. Physicians need drug information in order to practice safe and effective drug therapy. Previously, pharmacists provided drug information to physicians at the drug information section of the hospital pharmacy. At present, clinical pharmacists in most hospitals consult with patients regarding the drug therapy, and sometimes recommend the dosage regimen and provide drug information regarding the drug therapy to the physicians directly. We analyzed the records providing drug information to physicians and clinical interventions from March through May in 2002, and evaluated the acceptance ratio of pharmacists' recommendation for drug therapy. Clinical interventions included advice regarding drug therapy and pointing out prescription errors, inappropriate dosage, adverse drug reactions, drug interactions, and other aspects. In our survey, 73.8% of all interventions by the pharmacists were accepted by the physicians. For advice based on therapeutic drug monitoring, pharmacokinetics, laboratory data, and medication history, the interventions had a high probability of being accepted by physicians. Since drug information provided by pharmacists is generally given at the early stages in determination of drug therapy, pharmacists should acquire the ability to provide more advanced clinical pharmacy practices based on the clinical pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
