Introduction
Inpatient pharmacy staff, including pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, are often overlooked in hospital care by patients. The inpatient pharmacy staff, however, plays a major role in the safety of admitted patients and the efficiency of medication distribution. The duties of this role extend beyond patient discharge from the hospital, as review of a patient’s medication includes those taken at home. A pharmacy technician holds various responsibilities, including delivering medications to hospital units, preparing IV mixtures per protocol, and obtaining medication reconciliation for clinical pharmacists’ review. Pharmacists ensure safety by overseeing pharmacy technicians, checking the accuracy and method of IV medication preparation, and reviewing physicians’ medication recommendations. This article will go further into the details of how the inpatient pharmacy staff plays a role in patient safety.
Role of the Inpatient Pharmacy Staff
Patients commonly do not see pharmacy staff during a hospital stay, as they see nurses, doctors, and others on the unit. The inpatient pharmacy staff contributes to the care of the patients by reviewing a list of medications that the patient takes in the hospital and at home, delivering medications to the nurses in an appropriate timeframe, and providing recommendations to the healthcare providers. The pharmacy staff is continuously reviewing medications for safety and providing efficient delivery to the nurses on the unit.
Safeguards Followed by the Pharmacy
There are multiple safeguards that the pharmacy staff follow to ensure that there is no harm done to the admitted patients in terms of medication safety. One safeguard recently practiced by hospitals is digitalization and automation. This method allows for safer medication, tracking of inventory, and expedited dispensing to the patient (Abimanyu et al., 2025). Methods for accuracy and safety are important, as medication errors can lead to harm for the patient and a delay in care. According to a systematic review done by Batson et al., there is variability in the estimates of medication errors (Batson et al., 2021). Up to 50% of admissions for patients are due to medication errors, with the incidence of prescribing errors ranging from 8.8 to 14.7 errors per 100 orders (Cabri et al., 2021).
Another method utilized by the healthcare team is medication reconciliation. Medication reconciliation is commonly completed by the pharmacy technician upon admission to the hospital. Once completed, the technician will notify the treatment team and clinical pharmacist. The assigned pharmacist will then review the list for any potential issues caused by the medications on the list and note any discrepancies between home medications and those stated to the technician. Upon completion of the review, the pharmacist will write a consult note and will notify the clinical team (Nguyen et al., 2022).
Summary of Literature
A study was conducted by Cabri et al. to emphasize the need to implement a standardized process across health systems to get an accurate number of prescribing errors caught by pharmacists. The study was completed during 6 weeks within a period of 3-months. Upon completion, they found that the pharmacists intervened on 7,187 errors, which equates to $874,000 in avoided cost (Cabri et al., 2021). Pharmacists documented the type of prescribing error, the capacity for harm, and the problem statement and corresponding recommendations. This information allowed the team to quantify the errors intercepted and the capacity for harm. Nearly half of the errors could have led to life-threatening or serious injury. The top three types of errors were “wrong dose/rate/frequency”, “duplicate therapy”, and “wrong timing” (Cabri et al., 2021).
As noted above, digitalization and automation are types of methods used to minimize harm to patients. Medication management in a hospital follows the four stages of prescribing, transcription and verification, dispensing by a nurse to the patient, and administration by a nurse to the patient (Batson et al., 2021). An error can occur at any of these stages, which emphasizes the need for continuous automation. Current systems in the hospital allow for multiple technologies to be used to increase patient safety and the efficiency of healthcare professionals. These systems allow for simultaneous improvements to pharmacy inventory management (Batson et al., 2021). A systematic review by Abimanyu et al. observed that these automated methods reduced medication administration time by 83% (Abimanyu et al., 2025). This observation brings to light the additional benefit of efficiency beyond safety. In addition, medications fill process throughout the day reduced the lead times by 55% to 65%. Any system with barcode verification reduces the time required for medication preparation, contributing to faster and more accurate medication distribution. Automated dispensing improved inventory management, as a 20% decrease in expired medications was noted (Abimanyu et al., 2025).
Discussion
Safety methods used by the pharmacy staff ensure medication safety, accurate distribution, and increased efficiency by the overall healthcare team. Clinical pharmacists play a proactive role in addressing potential issues. Factors affected include dispensing efficiency, medication safety, inventory management accuracy, and improved workflow. An adjustment that should be made for future studies is to create a standardized method to capture prescribing errors. While robotic dispensing did reduce errors and wait times, it required substantial staff training. It also requires support from leadership, cross-departmental coordination, staff training, and plans for potential disruptions (Abimanyu et al., 2025).
References
Abimanyu, E. P. B., Satibi, S., & Endarti, D. (2025). Digital Technologies in Hospital Pharmacy: A Systematic Review of Their Impact on Efficiency, Safety, and Inventory Management. J Prev Med Public Health. https://doi.org/10.3961/jpmph.25.495
Batson, S., Herranz, A., Rohrbach, N., Canobbio, M., Mitchell, S. A., & Bonnabry, P. (2021). Automation of in-hospital pharmacy dispensing: a systematic review. Eur J Hosp Pharm, 28(2), 58-64. https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2019-002081
Cabri, A., Barsegyan, N., Postelnick, M., Schulz, L., Nguyen, V., Szwak, J., & Shane, R. (2021). Pharmacist intervention on prescribing errors: Use of a standardized approach in the inpatient setting. Am J Health Syst Pharm, 78(23), 2151-2158. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxab278
Nguyen, H. L., Alvarez, K. S., Manz, B., Nethi, A., Sharma, V., Sundaram, V., & Julka, M. (2022). Real-Time Risk Tool for Pharmacy Interventions. Hosp Pharm, 57(1), 52-60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018578720973884