Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee

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Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee

• Drug Formulary
• Drug Monographs
• Newsletters

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Who is the PT Committee?

• Under the Medical Staff
• Made up primarily of physician specialists,
  Pharmacy director and clinical pharmacists, also
  can be representatives from nursing,
  administration, quality assurance, medical
  records, laboratory, etc.

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PT Primary Duties/Functions

• Determine formulary of drugs
• Develop/review treatment guidelines protocols
• Establish formulary appeals process
• Policies and procedures regarding drug use
• Establish strategies/programs to improve patient
  compliance with medications
• Quality Assurance activities (DUE, DUR)
• Adverse Drug Reaction reporting

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PT Primary Duties/Functions cont.

• Provide drug use education programs to
  professional staff
• Monitor drug delivery technology
• Monitor legislative and regulatory developments
• Develop/enforce drug use ethics policies
• Develop policies for investigational drug use and
  participation in clinical trials (IRB)

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How Do Pharmacists Support the PT Committee

• Planning future agendas
• medications
• policies and procedures
• quality assurance
• Gathering data
• Evaluating medications for formulary adoption or
  deletion

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How do Pharmacists Support PT Committee cont..

• Preparing and conducting quality assurance
  programs (DUE)
• Preparing policies and procedures
• Communicating information from the PT committee
  to other areas of the institution.
• Verbally
• Dear Doctor letter
• Newsletter

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Who Requires a formulary System?

• Hospitals (required by JCAHO)
• Nursing homes
• Health maintenance organizations (HMOs)
• State Medicaid for their customers
• Insurance companies (benefits plan)

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What are the Goals of a formulary System?

• To provide a group of high quality drugs for the
  particular situation to ensure that drugs are
  available for any disease state likely to be
  treated and that the drugs chosen are the most
• efficacious
• have the fewest side effects
• cost the least

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What Mechanisms are in Place to Restrict
Physicians from prescribing Non-Formulary Drugs?

• Require specific request forms to be filled out
• Have a waiting period to obtain non-formulary
  drugs.
• Be financially penalized for use or overuse of
  non-formulary drugs (HMO, managed care groups,
  insurance companies)

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ASHP Guidelines for Recommendations to the
Formulary

• 1. Added for uncontrolled use by the entire
  medical staff.
• 2. Added for monitored use no restrictions
  placed on use, but the drug will be monitored to
  determine appropriateness of use.

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ASHP Guidelines cont..

• 3. Added with restrictions the drug is added to
  the formulary, but there are restrictions on who
  may prescribe it and/or how it may be used
  (specific indications, certain MDs only, etc.)
• 4. Conditional use available for use by the
  entire medical staff for a finite period of time.
• 5. Not added or deleted from formulary.

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Drug Newsletters

• Purpose- method to communicate drug information
  to medical staff, physicians, nursing, pharmacy,
  public, etc.
• Sent from hospital pharmacies, community
  pharmacies, nursing homes, drug companies,
  pharmacy organizations and government regulatory
  bodies.

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Steps to Writing a Newsletter

• Define the audience
• Define the goals
• Identify constraints

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Tips for good Newsletters

• Make it look appealing
• Keep it consistent from issue to issue
• Use white space properly
• Design a masthead
• Keep articles short and easy to read
• Do not exceed 2 pages
• Give documentation and references
• Write clear, concise, complete. Be positive
• Edit, Edit, Edit!

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Newletter Topics

• Review of drug classes
• Adverse drug reactions
• Drug usage evaluation
• New informational sources
• new legal requirements
• new services
• news from other departments

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Newsletter topics cont...

• Calendar of events
• Personnel policies
• clinical pearls
• job related information
• pharmacoeconomics
• PT Committee news
• productivity information
• Professional announcements