Relationship between medication regimen complexity and pharmacist engagement in fluid stewardship.

Purpose: The medication regimen complexity intensive care unit (MRC-ICU) score has previously been associated with pharmacist workload and fluid overload. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship of MRC-ICU score with pharmacist-driven fluid stewardship recommendations as a means of establishing its role in risk stratifying critically ill patients for pharmacist intervention.

Methods: Adult patients admitted to the medical ICU and followed by the academic pharmacy team were included in this retrospective, single-center cohort study. Patient and pharmacist data were collected via electronic medical record and surveillance tool, respectively. MRC-ICU and sequential organ failure assessment (SOFA) scores were captured at ICU admission. The primary outcome was correlation between MRC-ICU score and number of pharmacist-driven fluid stewardship recommendations. Secondary outcomes included the relationships between MRC-ICU score, accepted recommendations, and patient outcomes (fluid overload and length of stay [LOS]). Descriptive statistics were calculated for each variable. Spearman's rank-order correlation was used.

Results: Of 168 patients, 22 (13%) experienced fluid overload. Median MRC-ICU and SOFA scores were 13 and 7, respectively, and were higher for patients experiencing fluid overload than for those without fluid overload. MRC-ICU had a weakly positive correlation with the number of pharmacist-driven fluid stewardship recommendations (ρ = 0.200; P = 0.010), fluid overload (ρ = 0.167; P = 0.030), and ICU LOS (ρ = 0.354; P < 0.001). These relationships remained true when looking at only the fluid stewardship recommendations that were accepted by the team.

Conclusion: MRC-ICU displayed a weakly positive correlation with pharmacist workload, suggesting its potential use in identifying patients likely to benefit from pharmacist intervention.