The impact of Medicines Information enquiry answering on patient care and outcomes

Objectives: To determine the impact of advice provided by UK Medicines Information (MI) services on patient care and outcomes.

Methods: Healthcare professionals who contacted MI centres with enquiries related to specific patients in 35 UK National Health Service hospitals completed questionnaires before and after receiving MI advice. A multidisciplinary expert panel rated the impact in a sample of enquiries. One investigator used the panel's ratings and principles to rate all enquiries.

Key findings: Of 179 completed questionnaire pairs, 178 (99%) enquirers used the advice provided. Most (145, 81%) judged advice had a positive impact: 110 (61.5%) on patient care, 35 (19.6%) on patient outcome. Medicines Information pharmacists actively advised on issues not previously identified by enquirers in 35 cases (19.6%). The expert panel judged that in 19/20 (95%) cases, advice had a positive impact on patient care or outcome, mainly due to risk reduction. Agreement was high between expert panel and enquirers' ratings of impact: 12 (60%) full agreement; 16 (80%) agreement within one point. The investigator's impact rating of the full sample was positive for 162 (92%) enquiries: 82 (47%) on patient care and 80 (45%) on actual or expected patient outcome.

Conclusions: Enquirers and an independent expert panel both determined that MI services provided useful patient-specific advice that impacted positively on patients. Reduction of risk was central to this impact. MI pharmacists frequently identified and advised on issues that clinicians using the service had not recognised themselves, this generally had a positive impact on patients.