The role of the pharmacist in the determination of pharmacotheraphy costs: Ischemic cardiopathy patients with smoking habits

In the last decades the pharmacisthas played a main role in the policies of costs containment in the health sector. The present study has been designed to assess this role in the costs containment of the pharmacological treatments of patients at a Coronary Care Unit(CCU) of a public hospitalin Argentina, through an analitic and retrospective study. It has been observed that the pharmacistcould determine in all the service a saving of $ 3,393.03 buying the prescriptive drugsat minimum prices during the analized period. However, it has been proved that there are costs which the pharmacistcannot modify, as in the case of certain risk factors that may increase the pharmacological costs in the treatment of a pathology. This cost variation has been proved in ischemic cardiopathy patients with smoking habits.