Evaluation of a pharmacist-led actionable audit and feedback intervention for improving medication safety in primary care: an interrupted time series analysis

Background. We evaluated the impact of a pharmacist-led Safety Medication dASHboard (SMASH) intervention on medication safety in primary care.
Methods and findings. SMASH comprised: (1) training of clinical pharmacists to deliver the intervention; (2) a web-based dashboard providing actionable, patient-level feedback; and (3) pharmacists reviewing individual at-risk patients, and initiating remedial actions or advising general practitioners on doing so. It was implemented in forty-three general practices covering a population of 235,595 people in Salford (Greater Manchester), UK. All practices started receiving the intervention between 18 April 2016 and 26 September 2017. We used an interrupted time series analysis of rates of potentially hazardous prescribing and inadequate blood-test monitoring, comparing observed rates post-intervention to extrapolations from a 24-month pre-intervention trend. The number of people registered to participating practices and having one or more risk fac...