UGA study of 28,000 ICU patients links a day without a pharmacist to 20% higher mortality

Patients in intensive care units who went even one day of their stay without care from a pharmacist were 20% more likely to die, according to a study led by the University of Georgia (UGA) and reported by newswise.com newswise.comnewswise.comnewswise.comOpen source ↗. The work was published in CHEST Journal (September 2026). The researchers analyzed data from 213 pharmacists across 64 hospitals.

Study design and results

The pharmacists reported their workload and every patient they cared for each day over 100 consecutive days. This produced data on more than 28,000 patients. The researchers then compiled information on the patients' severity of illness, health outcomes and other factors.

ICU patients were 10% more likely to die when a pharmacist was responsible for more than 15 patients. For every one-patient increase in a pharmacist's workload, the odds of a patient dying rose by 1%. Lead author Susan Smith, associate professor at the UGA College of Pharmacy, said earlier research had shown that pharmacist presence in the ICU improves outcomes, but this is the first publication to show that pharmacists are needed every day of the week.

Smith noted that critically ill patients experience an average of 1.7 medical errors per day, and nearly 80% of serious errors are caused by medications newswise.comnewswise.comnewswise.comOpen source ↗. Critical care pharmacists review medications for potential interactions, optimize dosing and determine whether a different drug would be a better fit. Adverse drug events kill an estimated 250,000 hospital patients each year.

Staffing and hospital budgets

According to recent studies cited in the release, about a third of hospitals do not have critical care pharmacists in their ICUs. Those that do often limit pharmacist presence to weekdays and the day shift.

The researchers said that adding pharmacists to the team would likely save money in the long term through shorter patient stays and less reliance on costly life-sustaining measures. Mojdeh Heavner of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, a member of the study's leadership team, said the data show a clear association between pharmacist workload and patient mortality.

The study was co-authored by Zhetao Chen and Xianyan Chen of the UGA College of Public Health. Other co-authors come from Wellstar MCG Health, Northeastern University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Emory University and the University of Colorado. Andrea Sikora of the University of Colorado Anschutz is a senior author newswise.comnewswise.comnewswise.comOpen source ↗.