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Person-centred pharmaceutical care reduces emergency readmissions

Blagburn, Julia; Kelly-Fatemi, Ben; Akhter, Nasima; Husband, Andy

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Authors

Julia Blagburn

Ben Kelly-Fatemi

Andy Husband



Abstract

Background Unplanned readmissions to hospital are used in many healthcare systems as a quality indicator of care. Identifying patients at risk of readmission is difficult; existing prediction tools are only moderately sensitive. Correlations exist between certain medicines and emergency readmission, but it is not known whether the association is direct or indirect. Objectives To determine whether person-centred pharmaceutical care bundles, comprising individualised medicines information, risk management and/or support in taking medicines, might prevent unplanned readmissions by improving adherence and reducing avoidable harm from prescribed medications. Methods We designed and implemented person-centred pharmaceutical care bundles for patients who were socially isolated and/or on high-risk medicines on one older people's medical ward for 1 year from February 2013. Another ward with similar patient demographics, service characteristics and a standard clinical pharmacy service was used as a comparator in a prospective cohort study. Readmission rates were retrospectively studied for 12 months before the intervention and during the 12-month intervention period. Results The readmission rates for the intervention and control wards in the 12 months before the intervention were not significantly different. During the intervention period, the readmission rate was significantly lower on the intervention ward (69/418) than on the control ward (107/490; 17% vs 22%, p<0.05, z=2.05, two-sample z test for difference in proportions of unrelated samples). Conclusions Person-centred pharmaceutical care bundles were significantly associated with reduced risk of emergency hospital readmission in this study. Further evaluation of the model is warranted.

Citation

Blagburn, J., Kelly-Fatemi, B., Akhter, N., & Husband, A. (2016). Person-centred pharmaceutical care reduces emergency readmissions. European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 23(2), 80-85. https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2015-000736

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Aug 12, 2015
Online Publication Date Oct 1, 2015
Publication Date Mar 1, 2016
Deposit Date Nov 24, 2015
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy
Print ISSN 2047-9956
Electronic ISSN 2047-9964
Publisher BMJ Publishing Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 23
Issue 2
Pages 80-85
DOI https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2015-000736

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version Open Access This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is
properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/






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