Pharmacists' role in supporting the return of over 10,000 preemptive pharmacogenomics results: The Mayo Clinic experience

Purpose: To develop a pharmacist-driven, exploratory pharmacogenomics implementation model with the goal of creating a process for pharmacists to interpret pharmacogenomics results from RIGHT 10K Study samples and provide electronic consults to providers.

Summary: A train-the-trainer model program was initiated whereby pharmacogenomics pharmacists developed a documentation template and a quick reference guide as a standard guide to train other pharmacists. Pharmacists completed electronic consults (e-consults) reviewing pharmacogenomics results, with reference to drug-gene interactions, for patients with "semi-urgent" and "clinically actionable" results, defined as those indicating a potential for gene-drug interactions to cause major harm and those indicating a potential for an adverse drug reaction or reduced efficacy, respectively. Outcomes measured included the number of consults over time, number and role of pharmacists involved, average time to complete e-consults over time, and gene-drug pairs for semi-urgent consults per month. A total of 395 pharmacists were trained. The total number of e-consults completed was 2,843: 61 semi-urgent and 2,782 clinically actionable consults. The average time spent per consult was 24 minutes, and the average number of e-consults per pharmacist was 7. CYP2C19-clopidogrel was the most common gene-drug pair targeted in semi-urgent consults.

Conclusion: Pharmacy leaders planning to implement similar pharmacogenomics programs can utilize this data to estimate hiring needs for future pharmacogenomics implementation, while also considering the potential additional cost of developing resources.