COMPUTER ASSISTED PATIENT INTERVIEWING IN CLINICAL PHARMACY

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Clinical pharmacists are responding to the drug information explosion by participating more directly in patient care. Specifically, clinical pharmacists have become increasingly active in dispensing pharmaceutical information to patients, checking for patient compliance with their medication regimen, screening for adverse effects caused by single drugs and drug combinations, and sorting out possible complications between medications and food, allergies and chronic medical conditions. To be fully effective in these increasingly demanding tasks, pharmacists must keep abreast of new drug knowledge, allocate more time for patients, and continually sharpen their interviewing skills. In order to explore potential roles of the computer in these emerging tasks, a collaborative project was initiated between the Computer Systems Laboratory and the Clinical Center Pharmacy Department. It was decided to design and develop a computer system that could directly interview patients in order to collect medication histories and flag possible untoward effects related to medication regimens. It is believed that this "patient friendly" system, if successful, could truly "clone" the skills of clinical pharmacists and permit multiple simultaneous interviews. It is recognized that not all patients will be suitable candidates for direct computer interviewing. It is, however, a design objective to simplify the computer interview process so that a large number of patients can be accommodated. Evaluation of patient and pharmacist reactions to the initial testing will be done in FY91. In addition, selection and incorporation of a drug data base are significant milestones for the coming year.