The Role of the Pharmacist in a Geriatric Nursing Home: A Literature Review

Abstract

This review delineates the pharmacist's controversial clinical role in nursing homes as it has developed within the legal, social, and economic climate of the Medicaid and Medicare conditions of participation. Special problems of the geriatric institutionalized patient include polypharmacy, adverse reactions, the overuse of prn drugs, and inadequate physician contact. These problems are compounded by an impoverished scientific data-base for appropriate drug use in the aged. Studies that clarify the impact consultant pharmacists have on the number of drugs prescribed, adverse reactions, and cost containment are compiled and evaluated. It is shown that pharmacists can reduce the number and cost of drugs. Physician acceptance of pharmacists' recommendations was found to be at least 60 percent in these reports. Well-controlled studies are lacking in the literature.