Clinical pharmacy service is effective in the therapy for patients. The service is also effective to reduce health service costs and improve its quality by the monitoring of prescription and reporting drug side-effects. This service is effectively proven to decrease mortality rate in hospitals. Â
That was delivered by Prof. Dra. Zullies Ikawati, Ph.D., Apt., when inaugurated as professor of Faculty of Pharmacy, UGM, Thursday (25/2), at UGM Senate Hall. Zullies said that in a study in Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, it was found that pharmacist’s participation in visiting ICU rooms can reduce the side-effects up to 60% due to wrong medication instruction.
Meanwhile, there are still many drug related problems (DRP) in many health centers in Indonesia. In a hospital in East Kalimantan, there were 88.6% patients of diabetes mellitus suffering from DRP with the most indications of inadequate treatment. In a hospital in East Java, 90.4% of 52 hemodyalisis patients suffer from DRP with most patients were not given medicine.
“Clinical pharmacy service can actually reduce DRP and increase the therapy. Counseling by pharmacists to diabetes mellitus patients could improve the therapy and patient's quality of life. It can also increase targeted blood pressure,†the lady born in Puwokerto, 6 December 1968, explained.
Zullies added that in drugs information service and counseling, a pharmacist should master technical pharmaceutical knowledge in order to give appropriate recommendation.Â
The practice of clinical pharmacy service in Indonesia was developed since year 2000. The slow development was because the clinical pharmacy can not yet be fully accepted by health workers in hospitals. Pharmacists have no access to the development of patient’s treatment as they are considered not competent.