Effect of an In-Hospital Multifaceted Clinical Pharmacist Intervention on the Risk of Readmission A Randomized Clinical Trial

This RCT of 1467 patients on 5 or more medications and followed up for 6 months, reports multi-faceted pharmacist intervention significantly reduced the prespecified primary outcomes of readmission within 30 or 180 days and emergency department visits within 180 days.

This study was conducted at 4 different acute admissions wards in Denmark. Patients were randomised to receive usual care (no intervention), a basic intervention (medication review), and an extended intervention (medication review, 3 motivational interviews, and follow-up with the primary care physician, pharmacy, and nursing home).

 

The extended intervention had a statistically significant effect on the number of patients who experienced a readmission within 30 days after inclusion compared with usual care (14.3% vs 22.3%, HR 0.62; 95%CI 0.46-0.84) or within 180 days after inclusion (39.7% vs 48.8%, HR 0.75; 0.62-0.90) and the number of patients who had a composite of readmissions or ED visits within 180 days after inclusion (40.5% vs 48.8%, HR 0.77; 95% CI 0.64-0.93).