Psychiatric pharmacists have specialized knowledge, skills, and training or substantial experience working with patients with psychiatric or neurologic disorders. As part of the collaborative team with a physician, psychiatric pharmacists can provide comprehensive medication management (CMM), a direct patient care service, to patients with psychiatric or neurologic disorders. CMM is a standard of care in which all medications for an individual patient are assessed to determine appropriateness, effectiveness, safety, and adherence. Studies have shown that when psychiatric pharmacists are included as part of the collaborative team with a physician, medication-related outcomes for patients with psychiatric or neurologic disorders improve. Despite the evidence supporting the value of psychiatric pharmacists as part of the health care team, the very limited mechanisms for compensation for CMM limit the numbers of patients with psychiatric or neurologic disorders who have access to services provided by a psychiatric pharmacist. We believe that all patients with psychiatric or neurologic disorders should have access to CMM provided by a psychiatric pharmacist.

A metropolitan hospital system has developed and implemented a transition-of-care program focusing on patients with mental illnesses and high risk for hospital readmissions or emergency department visits. Currently, the transition period between care settings creates a state of vulnerability for patients and their caregivers. Poor care coordination negatively affects patient outcomes and results in a major economic burden. Patients with mental illnesses are particularly sensitive to transition-of-care issues including confusion about which medications to start and stop. This program aims to design, implement, and evaluate interventions to improve care transitions at 3 hospitals for individuals with a primary or secondary psychiatric diagnosis. In the inpatient setting, the clinical pharmacist, nurse practitioners, and social workers collaborate to identify medication-related problems. After patients are discharged from the hospital, nurse practitioners, the clinical pharmacist, and educators follow up with patients for 30 days via home health aide visits and telephone calls. Evidence-based tools and assessments are used to drive the program's interventions. From June 2014 to September 2014, 770 patients were identified as high risk. Readmissions data are pending. The patient outcomes data will fill the gap in the literature with essential information on transition-of-care issues within the mental health population. This program has implications to affect health care policy because it uses multiple evidence-based practices with the ultimate goal of decreasing economic burden for health systems and patients. New pharmacist roles in transition of care may emerge from this program.

Take-home naloxone is an important intervention for addressing opioid overdoses. Patients with a history of a substance use disorder are at an elevated risk of experiencing an overdose, and even in substance-abuse treatment, they may continue to witness peer overdoses. The purpose of this innovative practice was for psychiatric clinical pharmacists to improve access to intranasal naloxone and provide opioid overdose prevention training for patients receiving opioid agonist treatment (OAT). This program took place at a San Francisco Department of Public Health pharmacy that provides OAT (buprenorphine and methadone) to approximately 200 patients with opioid use disorders as part of an integrated treatment program. During the 17-month study period, 47 intranasal naloxone kits were prescribed. Patients reported 3 successful opioid overdose reversals using intranasal naloxone. Based on these findings, psychiatric clinical pharmacists can improve patient safety by increasing access to intranasal naloxone and opioid overdose prevention training for patients receiving OAT.

Introduction: Studies examining educational interventions led by pharmacists to minimize negative outcomes associated with elevated and potentially harmful lithium levels in inpatient psychiatric facilities are lacking. Other studies indicate a need for improvement of therapeutic drug monitoring for lithium. The aim of this article is to identify potential improvements in negative outcomes associated with harmful lithium blood levels after educational interventions are delivered by a clinical pharmacist to providers of an inpatient psychiatric facility.

Methods: Medication reports were queried from the pharmacy database to identify all patients who were taking lithium within 1 year. Laboratory results, physician progress notes, nursing progress notes, and treatment plans were studied to detect any adverse events associated with lithium levels. Educational interventions created by pharmacy services were tailored toward medical staff and delivered over a 3 month period. Learning was assessed at pre-educational and posteducational interventions.

Results: One hundred fifteen patients received lithium between March 2012 and March 2013. The most-frequent adverse effects reported associated with lithium included tremor, dizziness, slurred speech, and lethargy. Two patients were sent to the local emergency department for lithium toxicity and required dialysis. Fifty-two patients received lithium after educational interventions, and no adverse events were reported. A lithium drug-monitoring spreadsheet was created for pharmacy use, and drug-monitoring guidelines were revised and disseminated throughout the facility.

Discussion: A reduction in negative outcomes associated with lithium was noted after educational interventions to medical staff occurred. The impact of pharmacist-led educational interventions demonstrated a high potential for success.

Introduction: How to improve medication reconciliation has been an ongoing discussion in hospitals across the nation. This study was designed to identify areas for potential improvement in the medication reconciliation process for an 80-bed, inpatient psychiatric hospital. A previous evaluation conducted at the site indicated that 45% of medication reconciliations were correct. Subsequently, a new process was developed to improve this area of patient care. This process included an update to existing medication-reconciliation forms, staff education, and the standardization of all protocols involved. The investigators examined the updated process to identify gaps in patient care during the admission medication-reconciliation process.

Methods: The primary outcome of the study was an assessment of the accuracy of the updated medication-reconciliation protocols. Data, including medication, dosage, route, and frequency, were collected from randomly selected patients (13 years and older) admitted during the 2-month study period. These data were collected at least 24 hours after admission. Patients were interviewed and their home pharmacy was contacted to determine whether the information collected during the initial medication-reconciliation process was correct.

Results: The investigator identified 44 patients during the collection period and compared the results to the previous study, before the enhancements in the medication-reconciliation process. The accuracy of medication reconciliation in this analysis was 80%, compared with 45% from the previous study (P = 0.0011).

Discussion: Personnel training and protocol updates led to a statistically significant increase in the accuracy of the hospitals medication-reconciliation process. Ongoing staff education and assessment of the improved protocol may further increase accuracy in the medication-reconciliation process at this hospital.

Introduction: Integrated, patient-centered clinical pharmacy services have been shown to improve patient outcomes in a variety of settings, including mental health. In this article, we describe and report the impact of a restructured clinical practice model that incorporated direct patient care by pharmacists implemented at a psychiatric facility in Edmonton, Canada. The purpose of redesigning the clinical pharmacy program was to deliver proactive pharmacist care through integrated clinical pharmacy services and to better align pharmacists' activities with those that have been reported to have a positive impact on patient outcomes.

Methods: Pharmacists' documentation notes in medical records for patients admitted and discharged from the hospital at four different time periods were reviewed. For each time period, the number, type, and documentation rate were measured and compared using a Student t test with correction for unequal variances. Significant change was defined as P < .05. Documentation rates were also compared for short-stay versus long-stay patients.

Results: A consistent and statistically significant increase was found in pharmacists' clinical notes per chart from 0.15 to 1.5 (P < .001) after implementation of the redesigned clinical practice model. The proportion of clinical notes also increased from 22% in the preimplementation period to up to 68% in the current period. This indicates that pharmacists were spending proportionally more time on proactive versus reactive care. Documentation rates also increased regardless of the patients' length of stay.

Discussion: The redesigned clinical practice model enabled a successful transition of the pharmacists' role, from being predominantly reactive to becoming more proactive and integrated.

Introduction: Second-generation antipsychotics (SGA) are often prescribed prior to first-generation antipsychotics (FGA) for mental health disorders by reason of proposed improved tolerability. Patients on SGA are not always appropriately screened for metabolic parameters in the clinical setting. A metabolic clinic was previously established for a limited time period at the West Palm Beach Veterans Affairs Medical Center (WPB VAMC) with beneficial outcomes. Re-implementation expanded the clinic to assess the impact when patients were referred from outpatient mental health and primary care providers. The objectives of this quality improvement initiative were to evaluate pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic interventions and compare the patient load preexpansion and postexpansion of the metabolic clinic.

Methods: Patients receiving SGA at the WPB VAMC who met the criteria for metabolic syndrome were referred to the metabolic clinic. Preclinic data variables collected include demographics, social history, SGA, and assessment for presence of hypertension, diabetes, or dyslipidemia. Pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic intervention variables were collected throughout clinic involvement. The patient load post clinic expansion was reported.

Results: Of the 17 patients evaluated, 88.2% had hypertension, 94.1% had dyslipidemia, and 88.2% had diabetes mellitus. The average number of components of metabolic syndrome was 3.7 out of 5 possible components. Most patients were taking risperidone (47.1%). An average of 1.5 medication interventions were made per patient. Only 28 patients were referred during reimplementation phase.

Discussion: Metabolic syndrome commonly occurs in patients receiving SGA. Appropriately trained clinical pharmacists can help fill a gap in care by providing the recommended monitoring criteria and interventions for patients taking SGA.