For Staff Pharmacists ·
What you'll accomplish
By the end of this guide, you'll have a repeatable workflow for reviewing complex polypharmacy patients — those on 8+ medications — using Claude Pro's extended context window to catch drug interactions, Beers Criteria concerns, therapeutic duplications, and monitoring gaps in 5–10 minutes per patient instead of 30–45 minutes of manual reference checking.
What you'll need
What you should see: Your account now shows "Pro" badge. The context window (how much text Claude can process at once) is dramatically larger than the free version — critical for long medication lists and patient histories. Troubleshooting: If you can't access billing, check whether your employer's IT policy allows software subscriptions on work accounts. You can also use a personal account and personal credit card.
Rather than re-explaining your needs every time, create a reusable "system" prompt to paste at the start of each polypharmacy review. Open a new Claude conversation and paste this as your opening message:
You are a clinical pharmacy reviewer helping a staff pharmacist review complex polypharmacy cases. When I give you a patient's medication list and diagnoses, I need you to systematically review for:
1. Drug-drug interactions (rank by clinical severity: major, moderate, minor)
2. Drug-disease contraindications (especially for conditions in the patient's diagnosis list)
3. Therapeutic duplications (same class, same indication)
4. Beers Criteria concerns (flag the specific criterion for each)
5. Missing monitoring parameters (labs, vital signs that should be tracked)
6. Adherence risk factors (complex regimens, timing conflicts)
Format your output as a structured review with numbered sections. Prioritize findings by clinical urgency. At the end, give me a 3-5 item action list for my MTM session or prescriber communication.
What you should see: Claude acknowledges this role and is ready to receive a patient's medication list.
In the same conversation (or a new one, re-pasting the system prompt), type or paste the patient's complete medication list:
Patient: 74-year-old male
Diagnoses: Type 2 diabetes, heart failure (EF 38%), hypertension, chronic kidney disease (CrCl 32 mL/min), depression, insomnia
Current medications:
- Metformin 1000mg twice daily
- Lisinopril 10mg daily
- Carvedilol 12.5mg twice daily
- Furosemide 40mg daily
- Spironolactone 25mg daily
- Atorvastatin 40mg nightly
- Sertraline 50mg daily
- Zolpidem 10mg at bedtime
- Naproxen 500mg twice daily PRN pain
- Aspirin 81mg daily
- Calcium carbonate 500mg three times daily
Claude generates a structured analysis covering each of the six categories. It typically takes 15–30 seconds.
What you should see: A numbered review with sections for interactions (severity-ranked), contraindications, duplications, Beers concerns, monitoring gaps, and a priority action list.
What to look for in a good analysis:
Copy the priority action list from Claude's review and use it as your MTM session agenda:
You can continue the conversation to dig into any finding:
For a standard polypharmacy review:
Review this medication list for a [age]-year-old patient with [diagnoses]. Flag drug interactions by severity, Beers Criteria concerns, therapeutic duplications, and missing monitoring. Prioritize by clinical urgency and give me 3 action items: [medication list]
For renal/hepatic dose checking:
Check these medications for dose adjustment requirements in a patient with CrCl [X] mL/min. Flag any that need dose reduction, frequency adjustment, or should be avoided: [medication list]
For discharge medication review:
A patient is being discharged on these medications after [hospitalization type]. What are the highest-risk interactions or concerns in the first 30 days post-discharge, and what should we counsel the patient about? [medication list]
For transition-of-care reconciliation:
Compare these two medication lists and identify discrepancies, omissions, and potential new interactions. List A is from [care setting], List B is current medications. [paste both lists]
For MTM documentation:
I completed an MTM session with findings: [brief encounter notes]. Expand this into a complete SOAP note with medication action plan and 4-week follow-up plan.