WORKLOAD MONITORING AND REPORTING

To strongly discourage the use of pharmacy workload and productivity measurement systems (“pharmacy benchmarking systems”) that are based solely upon dispensing functions (e.g., doses dispensed or billed) or a variant of patient days, because such measures do not accurately assess pharmacy workload, staffing effectiveness, clinical practice contributions to patient care, or impacts on costs of care, and therefore these measurement systems are not valid and should not be used; further, 

To advocate the development and implementation of pharmacy benchmarking systems that accurately assess the impact of pharmacy services on patient outcomes and total costs of care; further, 

To define pharmacy workload as all activities related to providing pharmacy patient care services; further, 

To continue communications with health-system administrators, consulting firms, and professional associations regarding the value of pharmacists’ services and the importance of using valid, comprehensive, and evidence-based measures of pharmacy workload and productivity; further, 

To encourage practitioners and vendors to develop and use a standard protocol for collecting and reporting pharmacy workload data and patient outcomes; further, 

To advocate to health-system administrators, consulting firms, and vendors of performance-measurement services firms the development and implementation of pharmacy benchmarking systems that accurately assess the impact of pharmacy services on patient outcomes and total costs of care.

This policy was reviewed in 2019 by the Council on Pharmacy Management and by the Board of Directors and was found to still be appropriate.

Rationale

Although the practice of health-system pharmacy has evolved and changed significantly over the past three decades, benchmarking systems used to gauge the value and productivity of health-system pharmacy have remained largely unchanged. Productivity measures based solely on dispensing functions or a variant of patient days are not valid tools to assess current health-system pharmacy practice. These outdated measures do not reflect ASHP’s aspirations for health-system pharmacy (e.g., ASHP best practices, ASHP PAI 2030) or the high-value pharmacy enterprise framework. Use of these inappropriate productivity recommendations may result in inadequate staffing, which increases stress on pharmacy leadership, discourages pharmacists from becoming pharmacy directors, and contributes to the leadership gap in health-system pharmacy. Alternative benchmarking systems that more accurately reflect the value of health-system pharmacy services with respect to productivity, clinical and financial outcomes, and medication safety have been developed.