Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy Staff Publications

Language

English

Publication Date

7-1-2022

Journal

American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine®

DOI

10.1177/10499091211049401

PMID

34583554

PMCID

PMC8958171

PubMedCentral® Posted Date

7-1-2022

PubMedCentral® Full Text Version

Author MSS

Abstract

Palliative care is a specialized health care service for individuals with serious illness at any stage and can be provided in any setting. Current national consensus developed by palliative care experts recommends the inclusion of pharmacists in an interdisciplinary team (IDT) to provide quality palliative care. However, national registry data report that less than 10% of inpatient palliative teams in the U.S. have a clinical pharmacist. Clinical pharmacists have an impactful role in palliative patients' quality of life by optimizing symptom management, deprescribing, and providing education to the palliative care team as well as patients and their families. In this report, we review the current literature on the role of a palliative pharmacist in an inpatient palliative care setting and compare and contrast this with our own clinical practice, providing case examples about the role of a palliative clinical pharmacist in an interdisciplinary inpatient palliative care setting. Future strategies are needed to increase post-graduate specialized pharmacy residency training in palliative care as well as education on palliative and hospice care in pharmacy schools to support the role of clinical pharmacists in palliative care.

Keywords

Hospices, Humans, Inpatients, Palliative Care, Pharmacists, Quality of Life, palliative care, pharmacist, inpatients, terminal care, deprescribing, hospice care

Published Open-Access

yes

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