Outpatient clinical pharmacy practice in the face of COVID-19 at a cancer center in New York City

Outpatient clinical pharmacy practice in the face of COVID-19 at a cancer center in New York City

Purpose With the rapid spread of COVID-19 in New York City since early March 2020, innovative measures were needed for clinical pharmacy specialists to provide direct clinical care safely to cancer patients. Allocating the workforce was necessary to meet the surging needs of the inpatient services d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of oncology pharmacy practice Vol. 27; no. 2; pp. 389 - 394
Main Authors: Yerram, Prakirthi, Thackray, Jennifer, Modelevsky, Lisa R, Land, Josiah D, Reiss, Samantha N, Spatz, Krisoula H, Levoir, Andrea C, Pak, Terry K, Dao, Phuong H, Buege, Michael J, Derespiris, Lauren M, Lau, Carmen, Orozco, Jennifer S, Boparai, Manpreet, Koranteng, Lauren A, Reichert, Kate E, Yan, Shirley Q, Daukshus, Nicole P, Mathew, Sherry, Buie, Larry W, Tizon, Richard F, Freeswick, Scott, Liu, Dazhi, Harnicar, Stephen
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01-03-2021
Subjects:
Ambulatory Care Facilities - organization & administration
Cancer Care Facilities - organization & administration
COVID-19 - therapy
Humans
Neoplasms - therapy
New York City
Pandemics
Patient Care
Pharmacists
Pharmacy Service, Hospital - organization & administration
Professional Role
Retrospective Studies
Telemedicine
New York City
COVID-19
outpatient clinic
Clinical pharmacy
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Summary:Purpose With the rapid spread of COVID-19 in New York City since early March 2020, innovative measures were needed for clinical pharmacy specialists to provide direct clinical care safely to cancer patients. Allocating the workforce was necessary to meet the surging needs of the inpatient services due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which had the potential to compromise outpatient services. We present here our approach of restructuring clinical pharmacy services and providing direct patient care in outpatient clinics during the pandemic. Data sources We conducted a retrospective review of electronic clinical documentation involving clinical pharmacy specialist patient encounters in 9 outpatient clinics from March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020. The analysis of the clinical pharmacy specialist interventions and the impact of the interventions was descriptive. Data summary As hospital services were modified to handle the surge due to COVID-19, select clinical pharmacy specialists were redeployed from the outpatient clinics or research blocks to COVID-19 inpatient teams. During these 3 months, clinical pharmacy specialists were involved in 2535 patient visits from 9 outpatient clinics and contributed a total of 4022 interventions, the majority of which utilized telemedicine. The interventions provided critical clinical pharmacy care during the pandemic and omitted 199 in-person visits for medical care. Conclusion The swift transition to telemedicine allowed the provision of direct clinical pharmacy services to patients with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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These authors contributed equally to this work.
ISSN:1078-1552
1477-092X
DOI:10.1177/1078155220987625