ICU Pharmacists

Specialist clinical pharmacists are integral members of the multi-professional ICU team at JHH and are involved in every patient during the daily ward round.

At John Hunter Hospital's General Adult ICU, a fulltime Senior Clinical Pharmacist and a part-time Clinical Pharmacist provide an integrated specialist clinical pharmacy service Monday to Friday. For JHH Adult Cardiothoracic ICU and Paediatric ICU patients, a consultative service is provided. Clinical pharmacists in the ICU have been demonstrated to improve quality of care, reduce mortality and morbidity, reduce medication errors and effectively manage medication costs.

JHH ICU Pharmacists, as integrated members of the ICU team, undertake clinical and broader professional activities, which include but are not limited to:

• Active participation in daily ICU Clinical rounds and twice weekly ICU Antimicrobial Stewardship rounds to review, monitor and develop individualised medication management plans;
• Active participation in HNE Critical Care Clinical Stream & JHH ICU Executive Committees;
• Leading the development and maintenance of district-wide ICU (Adult) medication guidelines and expanding guidelines to include other critical care specialties e.g. Emergency, Coronary Care;
• Managing JHH ICU's medication formulary, usage and expenditure;
• Providing specialist expertise to the development of ICU's electronic prescribing protocols and medication libraries (in eRIC, MedChart, Smartpumps);
• Leading medication safety initiatives within the ICU;
• Education of clinical staff, conducting audits and participating in research projects.

Medication therapy is a fundamental component of intensive care. Specialist pharmacists play a key role in managing medication within the complexities of severe and fluctuating physiological, pharmacokinetic and dynamic changes, high volume use of high-risk medications and multiple medication administration routes.

Specialised pharmaceutical knowledge and skills are required in making clinical judgements about medication management in this vulnerable patient group, where evidence may often be scarce or emerging.  We work collaboratively with ICU medical, nursing and other allied health professionals to optimise medication therapy, safety and outcomes for critically ill patients.

Hours

ICU Clinical Pharmacy Service: Monday to Friday 7:30am to 4pm

A general pharmacy on-call service is available after hours. Contact via John Hunter Switchboard.