Clinical Pharmacist

Overview

Responsible for serving as a pharmaceutical care giver by efficiently designing, recommending, activating, monitoring, and evaluating patient-specific pharmacotherapy to ensure optimal outcomes.

Key Responsibilities of the role
Corresponding Key Activities performed by the role

Managerial

• Supervise junior staff and ensure their abidance to going rules and policies as applied and implemented in the section/department/organization, as per requirement.
• Participate in department/organization/regulatory bodies’ clinical projects.

Technical

• Optimize patient care in defined wards/units by planning, managing, monitoring, advising and reviewing specialist pharmaceutical care programs for patients.
• Undertake a medication review/ history of newly admitted patients to identify problems or medication issues that may influence the patients’ treatment plan, including simplifying complex regimes for patients in designated wards.
• Formulate treatment plans for inpatients, considering their presenting symptoms, medical history (including previous responses to medication), and the evidence base for pharmacological approaches in that condition. These treatment plans can be presented at multidisciplinary meetings for discussion and review.
• Discuss future treatment options with patients /carers. This will involve the provision of patient specific information and discussion of the risks and benefits of various options, to aid concordance.
• Assume responsibility for patient-specific pharmacotherapy plan to ensure optimal outcomes.
• Conduct clinical evaluations to assess medication use appropriateness.
• Conduct clinical review of drugs for addition/deletion from formulary.
• Actively participate in patient care rounds with other members of the healthcare team.
• Review medication orders and patient medication profiles for appropriateness of therapy.
• Verify and monitor medication orders for drug interactions, duplication and omission therapy, allergies, adverse reactions, and recommend appropriate formulary alternatives as needed.
• Calculate and confirm pharmaceutical dosage (paediatric doses, IV admixtures, TPN, chemotherapy, etc).
• Liaise with physicians, nurses and other fellow health care professionals to ensure the delivery of safe, effective and economic drug treatment.
• Interpret laboratory tests and other diagnostic tools to assess safety and effectiveness of drug therapy for individual patients, and recommend changes to practice and policy in line with updated evidence based medicine.
• Document therapeutic recommendations in the patient’s medical record and pharmacy intervention forms.
• Supervise the safe and competent use of all pharmacy equipment used in their area of practice.
• Provide regular attendance at multidisciplinary team meetings and medication review sessions making clinical decisions, and able to support these when challenged with a logical rationale and evidence base.
• Provide specialist advice and information on the safe, cost-effective and evidenced based use of medication.
• Implement pharmaceutical care initiatives based on local and organization wide, and other national guidelines relevant to needs of patients and medication management frameworks.
• Optimize patient compliance with prescribed treatments by planning and delivering medication education to patients and carers on an individual or group basis, prior to discharge.
• Follow appropriate procedures for dispensing medication prescriptions.
• Conduct clinical audits and chart review on patient profiles, to ensure the accuracy, legality, safety and efficacy of prescribed medications in line with federal and local regulations as well as international standards.
• Advise the manager on potential service developments within own clinical area of work, and any associated procedural changes arising from suggested initiatives.
• Act as drug information and education resource for patients, students, colleagues, medical and nursing staff, and other healthcare professionals.
• Perform other related duties as assigned.

Quality & Safety

• Demonstrate competency in the use of all equipment, patient appliances and aids used in their service area.
• Report all incidents and complaints…