Heart-failure patients take their medicine more reliably when under the care of a pharmacist, resulting in fewer emergency-room visits and hospital stays as well as lower health-care costs, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Pharmacy.
The American Heart Association says more than 5 million people in the United States are in various stages of heart failure with total health-care costs exceeding $29 billion.
The UNC study, published in the May 15, 2007 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, included 314 low-income patients with heart failure. They were placed into two groups: one received typical services from a pharmacist; the other received care from a specially trained pharmacist who had access to customized educational materials, provided comprehensive instruction to participants and reminded them to refill their prescriptions.
"For every $1 we spent on the intervention group, the health-care system gained $14 in savings by decreasing emergency-room visits and hospitalization," said Michael D. Murray, the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor at the UNC School of Pharmacy and lead author of the study.
Compared to patients in the control group, those who received special intervention: