National survey of schools of pharmacy on prevalence and description of wellness initiatives.

INTRODUCTION: Although the importance of student wellness has been emphasized across health professions including pharmacy, there is a lack of information on the prevalence of such wellness programs in pharmacy schools. The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of student wellness programs in United States (US) schools of pharmacy and to describe their basic structure. METHODS: Deans from the 143 US schools of pharmacy were asked to participate in this study by completing an electronic survey. Institutions with wellness programs were prompted to answer questions related to their program, including who initiated the program, who participated, where wellness principles were taught and incorporated, and what dimensions of wellness were promoted. RESULTS: Forty-six responses were collected for a response rate of 32.2%. Thirty-four (73.9%) of respondents answered that they had a school wellness program. Similar numbers of private and public schools completed the survey at 24 (52.3%) and 22 (47.8%), respectively. The majority of programs targeted students (97.1%), faculty (79.4%), and staff (76.5%), were initiated by either the office of the dean (73.5%) and/or faculty (58.8%), and were comprised of faculty (88.2%), staff (82.4%), and office of the dean (67.6%). Wellness principles were most often taught and practiced during extracurricular events and didactic courses. CONCLUSIONS: This descriptive, survey-based study provides a snapshot on the current incorporation of wellness initiatives across US schools of pharmacy. Further studies are needed to elucidate best wellness practices within pharmacy academia.

Antibiotic de-escalation on internal medicine services with rounding pharmacists compared to services without.

Background Antimicrobial stewardship programs ensure antibiotic therapy is used appropriately and includes de-escalation when clinical status or culture data indicates broad-spectrum agents are no longer needed. Although the impact of infectious diseases clinical pharmacists has been well documented, there is limited research evaluating the impact of adult internal medicine clinical pharmacists on broad-spectrum antibiotic de-escalation while rounding on internal medicine teams. Objective To determine if broad-spectrum antibiotics were de-escalated more regularly and more rapidly in patients on internal medicine services with a rounding pharmacist at the bedside compared to internal medicine services without rounding pharmacists. Setting A single 700 bed academic medical center in the United States of America. Method This was a prospective observational cohort chart review. Main outcome measure The primary endpoint was appropriate broad-spectrum antibiotic de-escalation within 72 h or upon return of culture results. Result A total of 64 patients were included in this study with 39 in the pharmacist group and 25 in the no pharmacist group. De-escalation occurred in 35/39 patients on services with pharmacists and in 13/25 patients on services without pharmacists (p = 0.001). In terms of mean days of broad-spectrum antibiotic therapy, services with rounding pharmacists saw patients on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus coverage for an average of 2.12 days of their duration of therapy compared to 2.8 days in those without pharmacists (p = 0.821). Services with rounding pharmacists saw patients on Pseudomonas aeruginosa coverage for 2 days of their length of stay compared to 3 days in those without pharmacists (0.398). Conclusion This data shows that broad-spectrum antibiotics were de-escalated more frequently on medicine services with rounding pharmacists compared to services without pharmacists.