Resident physicians' acceptance of pharmacy students' pharmacotherapy recommendations during an ambulatory care advanced pharmacy practice experience.

OBJECTIVE: To compare the acceptance rates of written versus verbal pharmacotherapy recommendations made by pharmacy students on an ambulatory care advanced pharmacy practice experience (APPE). METHODS: Fourth-year pharmacy students made written and verbal pharmacotherapy recommendations to resident physicians in an internal medicine clinic at an urban, teaching hospital over a 10-month period. The types of recommendations and outcomes of the interventions were recorded using a data collection form to determine differences in acceptance rates for written versus verbal recommendations. The recommendation types and corresponding acceptance rates were also compared. RESULTS: Of 542 pharmacotherapy recommendations made by 14 APPE students during the 10-month study period, 65.1% were written and 34.9% were verbal. Of the 189 verbal recommendations, 97.9% were accepted, compared with 83.6% of written recommendations (p < 0.0001). The most frequent types of recommendations and overall rates of acceptance were dosage change (87.0%), laboratory monitoring (85.8%), and medication initiation based on evidence-based medicine guidelines (79.3%). CONCLUSION: Verbal pharmacotherapy recommendations made by pharmacy students were accepted by resident physicians at a significantly higher rate than written recommendations in an outpatient internal medicine clinic.