Pharmacy Practice News: Oncology Pharmacists Linked to Substantial Cost Avoidance

Health systems without an oncology pharmacist may face unnecessary costs, according to new research. On top of improving patient care, a full-time oncology pharmacist is connected to dramatic cost savings.

Data presented at the 2019 annual meeting of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association showed that a clinical pharmacist at one institution avoided $40,000 in costs over three months by verifying oral chemotherapy prescriptions.  

In addition, oral treatment options for cancer patients, which can be highly toxic, are not suprivsed as closely as IV therapy. Prescprtions are often filled by outside specialty pharmacies that can't access patient electronic health records.

"We have so much more oversight over IV chemotherapy than we do with oral therapeutics-- when they should all be treated equally," said Beth Gustafson, PharmD, a clinical pharmacist at Saint Luke's Health System. "Why do we let nonspecialty, non-oncology-trained pharmacists process these orders when we triple-check everything else? It's a strange double standard."

Read the full Pharmacy Practice News article.