Introduction: Children with cancer may be one of the most vulnerable groups to drug-related adverse events because they possess characteristics of patients with cancer as well as pediatric patients. To evaluate the clinical and economic impact of pharmacists' intervention on the care of pediatric hematology and oncology patients in the inpatient and outpatient settings of a children's hospital.
Methods: The pharmacist-intervention records from 2017 were retrospectively reviewed. Intervention rate, type of drug-related problems, acceptance rate, and frequently involved drugs in pharmacist interventions were analyzed. One physician and one pharmacist evaluated the clinical significance of each intervention. A cost-benefit analysis was conducted from hospital and patient perspective. The benefit from cost savings by reducing the number of prescribed drugs that are disposed was estimated as the benefit from hospital perspective. The benefit from cost avoidance based on the potential to avoid an adverse drug event (ADE) was estimated as the benefit from patient perspective. The cost of reviewing prescriptions was estimated based on the pharmacists' salary and the time involved.
Results: In 2017, 2361 interventions were performed in 381 pediatric patients with cancer. The acceptance rate was 97.2%. More than half of the interventions were regarded as clinically "significant" (58.8%) and "very significant" (14.6%). The cost-benefit of US$28,705 was determined from hospital perspective, with a cost-benefit ratio of 1.45:1. The cost-benefit of US$35,611 was calculated from patient perspective, with a cost-benefit ratio of 1.55:1.
Conclusions: Pharmacists' intervention in the care of hematology and oncology pediatric patients was effective in preventing clinically significant ADEs and had a positive economic impact on the health-care budget from both hospital and patient perspective.