we evaluated a composite clinical pharmacist intervention
described in the Methods section. However, the
pharmacists did not take part in the rounds, as opposed
to the study by Gillespie et al,11 where favourable effects
of a composite clinical pharmacist intervention were
reported. When designing our intervention, we considered
attending the rounds too time-consuming for the
pharmacists, and therefore we chose against this.
Nevertheless, we believe that this decision may have
negatively affected the results since it may have delayed
the integration of the new profession in healthcare, and
further research on pharmacist services designed differently
from ours may therefore be needed. Moreover, the
extent of implementation of the separate parts of our
intervention varied, and it would be of value to further
explore if specific parts of pharmacist interventions are
cost-effective. Indeed, it has recently been pointed out in
a Cochrane review that heterogeneity in study comparison
groups, outcomes and measures makes it difficult to
draw generalised conclusions on effects of pharmacist
interventions.21