Impact of Palliative Care Clinical Pharmacists in an Inpatient Care Setting on Total Health Care Expenditures.

Inpatient palliative care clinical pharmacy specialists (IPCPS) on multidisciplinary palliative care (PC) teams have expanding roles in the treatment of pain, nausea, and other symptoms for patients with serious illnesses. The aim of this study was to assess the clinical and financial outcomes associated with an IPCPS on an inpatient PC team. This was a retrospective cohort study conducted in Colorado.

Ambulatory clinical pharmacy specialty services: the Kaiser Permanente Colorado experience.

Health care in the United States is increasingly being delivered during ambulatory care visits.1 As new investment in health care shifts from the inpatient to outpatient setting, the role of ambulatory clinical pharmacists (CP) are expanding. While dispensing pharmacists provide clinical screening and patient education for potential drugrelated problems, CPs provide services that complement the care provided by dispensing pharmacists by directly advising and educating other health care providers and patients on appropriate pharmaceutical use and dosing.

A descriptive evaluation of warfarin use in patients receiving hospice or palliative care services.

Purpose: To describe and compare warfarin therapy use and outcomes between warfarin-receiving patients in hospice or palliative care (HPC) and not in HPC.

Methods: This retrospective, matched analysis examined warfarin-receiving patients who did (study cohort) and did not receive (control cohort) HPC services between 2002 and 2005. The matched cohorts were compared on rates of international normalized ratio (INR) measurements, INR control, and warfarin-related adverse events.