P & T Committee rises to challenges of the changing healthcare environment.

The ever-increasing importance of the P & T Committee is well illustrated in this exclusive interview with members of a committee from a leading academic, private-practice, health-science center--Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center. The participants detail the progress achieved in P & T Committee policy making, particularly in recent years.

Integration of drug-usage evaluation with a quality assurance program.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a classic quote that is still heard. Although health professionals strive for continuous improvement in the understanding, prevention, and treatment of pathology, they commonly ignore the system for health care delivery. DUE provides an effective mechanism for continuous examination of the system and improvement of patient outcome as it relates to drug therapy.

Drug therapy assessments by pharmacists.

Drug therapy assessments made for ambulatory patients by pharmacists and those made by the patients' primary physicians were compared. Using refill assessment guidelines, pharmacists evaluated the drug therapy regimens of patients attending a general medicine clinic before they were seen by their physicians. At the end of each clinic day, the pharmacists compared their assessments with the physician evaluations.