Impact of a Clinical Pharmacy Anemia Management Service on Adherence to Monitoring Guidelines, Clinical Outcomes, and Medication Utilization

BACKGROUND: Anemia management clinics have demonstrated favorable impacts on clinical and economic outcomes and patient satisfaction. Clinical pharmacists are uniquely qualified to manage complex drug therapies requiring intensive monitoring. The complexity, risks associated with inappropriate treatment, and high cost of erythropoietin-stimulating agents (ESAs) make patients on these medications excellent candidates for clinical pharmacist-based management. Integrating ESA management into a clinical pharmacist-managed service has the potential to improve anemia management not only by improving patient outcomes and patient safety, but also by decreasing medication costs. OBJECTIVES: To (a) assess adherence to monitoring guidelines, efficacy, and safety outcomes and (b) quantify medication utilization expenditures among patients using ESA therapy managed by a clinical pharmacy service compared with usual care. METHODS: This is a retrospective longitudinal cohort study of patients with anemia caused by chronic kidney disease who were on ESA treatment for at least 6 months between January 2008 and December 2010. Adherence to monitoring guidelines, efficacy, safety, and drug utilization outcomes were compared between the 2 groups. RESULTS: A total of 101 patients were included in the study. Of that number, 31 were managed by the pharmacist-managed anemia service, and 70 were in the usual care group. The pharmacist-managed patients had improved adherence to guidelines for hemoglobin monitoring (32.3% vs. 14.3%, P = 0.049) and iron monitoring (61.3% vs. 30.0%, P = 0.005) compared with similar patients receiving usual care. Time to achievement of hemoglobin target was 28 days in the pharmacist-managed group compared with 41 days in the usual care group (P = 0.135), while the proportion of patients achieving target hemoglobin was 96.8% compared with 95.7%, respectively (P = 0.654). Patients in the pharmacist-managed group used less epoetin alfa during the 6-month period, leading to an annualized savings of $1,288 per patient in drug expenditures. CONCLUSIONS: A clinical pharmacist-managed anemia service resulted in improved adherence to national monitoring guidelines, equivalent quality and safety outcomes, and lower medication utilization compared with usual care.