Evaluation of the Impact of a Collaboration Between Hospital and Community Pharmacists at Hospital Discharge
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Support of the hospital pharmacist for the medication management at hospital discharge.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Polypharmacy. Basic parameters: from 18 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Switzerland
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Enhanced Collaboration Between Hospital and Community Pharmacists to Improve the Hospital Discharge Process
Overview
The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of an enhanced collaboration between a hospital pharmacist and a community pharmacist during hospital discharge. For patients taking multiple medications, hospitalization often involves numerous changes to their treatment regimen. For community pharmacies, discharge prescriptions are often complex, and they sometimes lack the information that pharmacists need to deliver the treatment as safely as possible. As a result, there is a risk of medication errors, and a risk for patients. We aim to evaluate the benefits of this collaboration for adult patients admitted to the internal medicine ward of a regional hospital who are taking seven or more drugs and are being discharged to home. The main question it aims to answer is : Does the enhanced collaboration reduce the number of drug-related problems encountered by community pharmacists with discharge prescriptions ? Researchers will compare patients when a hospital pharmacist is involved during the discharge process and when he or she is not involved, which corresponds to normal care. The hospital pharmacist will not perform the intervention directly on the patient, but only with the community pharmacy. Once they agree to participate in the study, patients will only have to go to their usual community pharmacy after discharge and accept that the hospital transmits medical information to their usual pharmacy.
Interventions
- Other Support of the hospital pharmacist for the medication management at hospital discharge
1\) The hospital pharmacist calls the community pharmacy the day before discharge to order unusual or specific medications 2) The day of discharge, the hospital pharmacist performs a medication reconciliation in collaboration with the hospital physician 3) Once completed, the discharge prescription is sent to the community pharmacy before the patient is discharged. 4) The hospital pharmacist calls the community pharmacy to provide additional information about the patient and the prescription and
Primary outcome measures
- Number of drug-related problems on the hospital discharge prescription [Time frame: 7 days after hospital discharge]
Secondary outcome measures (3)
- Patient's satisfaction [Time frame: 7 days after hospital discharge]
- Community pharmacists' satisfaction [Time frame: Through study completion, approximately 6 months]
- 30 day readmission rate [Time frame: 30 days after hospital discharge]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Patients admitted to the internal medicine ward for more than 48 hours
- Patients prescribed seven or more drugs at the time of screening
- Patients discharged to home
- Patients able to give informed consent as documented by signature
Exclusion criteria
- Patient discharged to another hospital, nursing home or rehabilitation clinic
- Refusal of the community pharmacy to participate
- Inability to sign consent and follow the procedures of the study, due to language problems, psychological disorders, dementia, alterations of consciousness and lack of judgement
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Supportive care
Study locations
Switzerland · 1 center
- Hôpital Riviera-Chablais, Vaud-Valais — Rennaz
Publications
- Michel B, Hemery M, Rybarczyk-Vigouret MC, Wehrle P, Beck M. Drug-dispensing problems community pharmacists face when patients are discharged from hospitals: a study about 537 prescriptions in Alsace. Int J Qual Health Care. 2016 Dec 1;28(6):779-784. doi: 10.1093/intqhc/mzw111. PMID 27655792
- Braund R, Coulter CV, Bodington AJ, Giles LM, Greig AM, Heaslip LJ, Marshall BJ. Drug related problems identified by community pharmacists on hospital discharge prescriptions in New Zealand. Int J Clin Pharm. 2014 Jun;36(3):498-502. doi: 10.1007/s11096-014-9935-8. Epub 2014 Apr 4. PMID 24700340
- Imfeld-Isenegger TL, Studer H, Ceppi MG, Rosen C, Bodmer M, Beeler PE, Boeni F, Haring AP, Hersberger KE, Lampert ML. Detection and resolution of drug-related problems at hospital discharge focusing on information availability - a retrospective analysis. Z Evid Fortbild Qual Gesundhwes. 2021 Nov;166:18-26. doi: 10.1016/j.zefq.2021.08.004. Epub 2021 Sep 15. PMID 34538579
- Ahmad A, Mast MR, Nijpels G, Elders PJ, Dekker JM, Hugtenburg JG. Identification of drug-related problems of elderly patients discharged from hospital. Patient Prefer Adherence. 2014 Feb 4;8:155-65. doi: 10.2147/PPA.S48357. eCollection 2014. PMID 24523581
- Maes KA, Studer H, Berger J, Hersberger KE, Lampert ML. Documentation of pharmaceutical care: Validation of an intervention oriented classification system. J Eval Clin Pract. 2017 Dec;23(6):1425-1432. doi: 10.1111/jep.12817. Epub 2017 Sep 29. PMID 28960678
- Mekonnen AB, McLachlan AJ, Brien JA. Pharmacy-led medication reconciliation programmes at hospital transitions: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Clin Pharm Ther. 2016 Apr;41(2):128-44. doi: 10.1111/jcpt.12364. Epub 2016 Feb 23. PMID 26913812
- McCarthy LM, Li S, Fernandes O, Cameron K, Lui P, Wong G, Pariser P, Farrell J, Luke MJ, Guilcher SJT. Enhanced communication between inpatient and community pharmacists to optimize medication management during transitions of care. J Am Pharm Assoc (2003). 2019 Jan-Feb;59(1):79-86.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.japh.2018.09.006. Epub 2018 Nov 13. PMID 30446423
- Bruhwiler LD, Hersberger KE, Lutters M. Hospital discharge: What are the problems, information needs and objectives of community pharmacists? A mixed method approach. Pharm Pract (Granada). 2017 Jul-Sep;15(3):1046. doi: 10.18549/PharmPract.2017.03.1046. Epub 2017 Aug 25. PMID 28943987
Identifiers
NCT: NCT06902779 · ECHOPHARM