Assessing decision-making by hospital pharmacy directors in implementing clinical pharmacy services

Abstract

Decision-making by hospital pharmacy directors when deciding which clinical pharmacy services to implement and/or continue to provide was assessed. Also examined was how these decision-making activities, hospital characteristics, pharmacy characteristics, and pharmacy director demographics might be associated with the number and quality of clinical pharmacy services provided, as well as the number of clinical services implemented under the current pharmacy director. Hospital pharmacy directors reported considering a relatively large number of perceived goals for a clinical service and also indicated they use a rather broad range of decision-making methodologies in evaluating those goals when determining clinical services. Numerous variables were found to be significantly associated with the number of clinical services provided by the pharmacy department and the number of clinical services implemented under the current pharmacy director. However, relatively few variables were found to be significantly related to the quality of clinical pharmacy services being provided.