How a Patient Personalised Clinical Pharmacy Programme Can Secure Therapeutic Care in an Orthogeriatric Care Pathway (5P Project)?

Abstract

Background: A new model was developed for integrating a personalised clinical pharmacy programme (5P project) into the orthogeriatric care pathway.

Objective: To secure the therapeutic care of orthogeriatric patients.

Design and setting: Prospective descriptive study in a multisite teaching hospital from June 2019 to January 2020.

Subjects: Patients aged ≥75 years admitted for hip fracture.

Methods: A prescription review was performed for all patients at inclusion. Other clinical pharmacy activities (additional prescription review, pharmaceutical interviews, medication reconciliation) were dedicated to "high-risk" patients. Potential medication errors (ME), either pharmaceutical interventions (PI) or unintentional discrepancies (UID), were recorded. The potential clinical impact of PI was evaluated by a pluriprofessional expert panel using a validated tool.

Results: In the 455 patients included, 955 potential ME were detected, that is ≥1 potential ME for 324/455 (71%) patients. In acute care, 561 PI were formulated during prescription review for 440/455 (97%) patients and 348/561 (62%) were accepted by physicians. Medication reconciliation was performed for 213 patients, 316 UID were identified. In rehabilitation units, a second prescription review was performed for 112/122 (92%) "high-risk" patients, leading to 61 PI. The clinical impact was evaluated for 519/622 (83%) PI. A consensus was obtained for 310/519 (60%) PI: 147/310 (47%) were rated as having minor clinical impact, 138/310 (45%) moderate, 22/310 (7%) major, 2/310 (0.6%) vital, and 1/310 (0.3%) null.

Conclusion: The 5P project secured the orthogeriatric care pathway by detecting a great number of potential ME, including PI mostly considered as having a significant clinical impact.

Keywords: clinical relevance; frail elderly; hip fracture; medication errors; pharmaceutical services.