The Pharmacist-Acquired Medication History

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Abstract
In an effort to further demonstrate the pharmacist's clinical abilities and potential contribution to improving drug therapy, 58 pharmacist-acquired medication histories were compared with the medication histories obtained from the same inpatients by physicians. Particular attention was directed toward determining the extent to which patients knew which drugs they were taking prior to admission, the reliability of these patients in taking scheduled doses as outpatients, frequency with which these patients consumed another patient's prescription drugs, frequency at which non-prescription drugs were consumed prior to admission and the detection of allergies. In comparing physician-acquired data with pharmacist-acquired data, several things were obvious. Physicians did not generally obtain a comprehensive medication history. The pharmacist was more proficient in acquiring compresensive medication histories. Much of the information obtained in the pharmacistacquired medication history revealed that a significant percentage of patients were poorly informed about many aspects of drug therapy. The authors conclude that hospital pharmacists must take a more active role in counseling patients regarding their drug therapy.

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