ABSTRACT
Clinical pharmacy (pharmacists and technicians) in critical care has evolved over the past three decades to become an integral part of the multidisciplinary critical care team. It is well established in the care of the critically ill patient that a critical care pharmacist plays an important role in improving the safe and effective use of medicines. In the critically ill patient, frequent formulation and dose changes of medicines are required due to various patient-related factors and the specialty of critical care. A pharmacist's intervention in critical care is associated with prevention and detection of medication errors and optimisation of medication therapy. Critical care pharmacists optimise the impact of medicines prescribed during daily individual patient medication review and attendance on ward rounds. Additional roles of the critical care pharmacist include drug-use evaluation, provision of in-service education for nurses and doctors and nutrition team participation.
