Factor Analysis of Pharmacist Provisional Prescribing in Inflammatory Bowel Disease

With recent advances in medical development and increasingly complex patient characteristics, it is helpful to cooperate with each medical staff equipped with professional skills. For this reason, as part of the medical team, pharmacists have been participating in medical conferences and rounds. As a result, it is helpful for task-shifting and sharing performed with multi-medical staff. However, little is known about the effect of pharmacists' participation in medical conferences and rounds with respect to pharmacist provisional prescribing as task-shifting and sharing of physicians’ work. Hence, we studied the effect of shifting physicians' work to pharmacists as pharmacist provisional prescribing in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). A retrospective analysis was conducted on the prescriptions of IBD patients hospitalized and prescribed at Tsujinaka hospital Kashiwanoha between January 2018 and December 2020. Out of the total prescriptions registered, 835 were internal and topical medications and 2105 were injections. Pharmacist provisional prescribing accounted for 581 (69.6%) internal and topical medications and 503 (23.9%) injections. Furthermore, in a multivariate analysis of pharmacist provisional prescribing, “Regularly participates at rounds with physicians” had significant positive factors, with an adjusted odds ratio (adj-OD) of 5.03 (95% CI [confidence interval] 2.31-10.96, P‹0.001) for internal and topical medications and an adj-OD of 6.26 (95% CI 3.50-12.01, P‹0.001) for injections. Therefore, we found that a positive factor in task-shifting from physicians to pharmacists was initiatives by pharmacists who regularly participate in rounds with physicians.