Deprescribing of Medicines in Care Homes - A Five-Year Evaluation of Primary Care Pharmacist Practices

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Author
Alves, Ana
Green, Shaun
James, Delyth
Date
2019-08-03Acceptance date
2019-08-01
Type
Article
Publisher
MDPI
ISSN
2226-4787
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
(1) Background: This project evaluates the outcomes of a novel pharmacy-led model of deprescribing unnecessary medications for care home patients. A feasibility study was conducted in 2015 to explore exposure to inappropriate polypharmacy in patients residing in care homes over a one-year timescale. The aim of this study was to present the results of this ongoing service evaluation over a five-year period. (2) Methods: Data collection and risk assessment tools developed during the feasibility study were used to measure the prevalence, nature, and impact of deprescribing interventions by primary care pharmacists over a five-year period. A random sample of approximately 5% of safety interventions were screened twice yearly by the pharmacist leads as part of standard practice. (3) Results: Over a period of five years there were 23,955 interventions (mean 2.3 per patient) reported from the 10,405 patient reviews undertaken. Deprescribing accounted for 53% of total estimated financial drug savings, equating to £431,493; and 16.1% of all interventions were related to safety. (4) Conclusions: Medication reviews in care homes, undertaken by primary care pharmacists who are linked to GP practices, generate a wide range of interventions commonly involving deprescribing, which contributes significantly to the continuous optimisation of the prescribing and monitoring of medicines.
Journal/conference proceeding
Pharmacy;
Citation
Alves, A., Green, S. and James, D.H. (2019) 'Deprescribing of Medicines in Care Homes—A Five-Year Evaluation of Primary Care Pharmacist Practices', Pharmacy, 7(3), 105. DOI: 10.3390/pharmacy7030105.
Description
Article published in Pharmacy on 03 August 2019, available open access at: https://doi.org/10.3390/pharmacy7030105.
Sponsorship
Cardiff Metropolitan University (Grant ID: Cardiff Metropolian (Internal))
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