07). Two studies[18,25] reported only clinical and patient outcomes. Chabot et al.[18] described a Canadian community pharmacy CDSS to increase adherence see more to antihypertensive medicines and improve blood-pressure control.

The benefits of this computer-based pharmaceutical care programme (improved physical activity levels, self-reported adherence and blood-pressure control) were restricted to higher-income patients. Weinberger et al.[25] report an RCT comparing usual care, a peak-flow-monitoring control group and a pharmaceutical care intervention using patient-specific clinical data and support materials for patients with asthma or COPD. At 12 months, patients in the pharmaceutical-care arm had statistically significantly higher peak-flow rates than usual-care-arm patients, but there was no difference compared to the peak-flow-monitoring control group. Both peak-flow-monitoring and pharmaceutical-care

Palbociclib patients reported statistically significant increases in satisfaction with pharmacist services, and there were trends in both groups towards improved quality of life compared to patients in the usual-care arm. Two of the QUM studies examined the effect of a CDSS on pharmacist activity.[20,21] Murray et al.[20] investigated the effects of computerised guidelines and patient-specific treatment suggestions for a number of chronic diseases (heart failure, ischaemic heart disease, reactive airways disease and uncomplicated hypertension) on pharmacists’ time dealing with prescriptions and contacts with patients and other health professionals. These authors found that the CDSS increased time spent discussing medication-related issues and problem-solving and decreased time spent checking and filling prescriptions. Reeve et al.[21] found an electronic prompt in the dispensing software of Australian community pharmacies significantly SPTLC1 changed pharmacists’ behaviour, increasing the number of interventions

to recommend aspirin therapy in diabetic patients. Notably, the rate of intervention decreased over time and did not persist with deactivation of the prompt. Of the 10 studies reporting prescribing outcomes, five were conducted in institutional settings and five in ambulatory care. All 10 studies demonstrated significant improvements on the majority of prescribing outcomes assessed. The clinical targets for the drug safety and monitoring studies varied. Targets included critical drug interactions where the prescription was halted until the pharmacist contacted the prescriber,[28] excessive dosing of 98 medications based on the patient’s level of renal function,[32] prescriptions for medicines to be avoided in pregnancy[33] and new prescriptions for medications considered inappropriate for use in the elderly.