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Comment & Response
June 2018

Enough Power to Build a Strong Case for Clinical Pharmacy Services?

Author Affiliations
  • 1Hospital Pharmacy Department and Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Sciences, University Hospitals Leuven and KU Leuven, Belgium
  • 2Geriatric Medicine, Department of Chronic Diseases, Ageing and Metabolism, University Hospitals Leuven, and KU Leuven, Belgium
JAMA Intern Med. 2018;178(6):864. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2018.1706

To the Editor We read with great interest the Original Investigation by Ravn-Nielsen et al1 published in a recent issue of JAMA Internal Medicine. Owing to the large size (n = 1467) and randomized controlled design, the results of the OPTIMIST study1 seem valid and should be considered to be of particular importance to facilitate the further implementation of in-hospital clinical pharmacy services. Ravn-Nielsen et al1 showed that a multifaceted pharmacist intervention, initiated during hospital stay and including a motivational patient interview and follow-up after discharge, significantly reduced the number of all-cause readmissions in a Danish patient sample (number needed to treat = 12). The number of drug-related readmissions was not affected significantly, however. These findings are in contrast with previous investigations by Gillespie et al2 and Pellegrin et al,3 of which both studies found lower rates of drug-related readmissions without a difference in the number of all-cause readmissions.

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