The Role of an Inpatient Hospice and Palliative Clinical Pharmacist in the Interdisciplinary Team.

The review is descriptive and includes the authors' own practice examples, not tested interventions. The seven original reports are small, mostly retrospective, and often lack randomization or control groups. Many reported outcomes are associations, and patients received multiple treatments and team care, so the pharmacist's separate contribution cannot be isolated. Cost savings estimates used assumptions, such as that 7% of interventions would prevent harm, and some interventions were excluded from the cost analysis. One reviewed VA hospice study included mostly Caucasian male veterans, limiting generalizability. Important outcomes such as length of stay, readmissions, or emergency visits were not captured in one reviewed return on investment report. The search included only English abstracts and excluded outpatient settings, so it may not cover all relevant practice reports.

Do not conclude that adding an inpatient palliative pharmacist improves patient outcomes. The review summarizes small descriptive reports, often retrospective and without randomization, and the authors' own unit is a practice example rather than a tested intervention.