Evaluation of the Impact of a Collaboration Between Hospital and Community Pharmacists at Hospital Discharge

Pharmacie des Hopitaux de l'Est Lemanique

Status: Enrolling

Conditions: Polypharmacy

Treatments: Other: Support of the hospital pharmacist for the medication management at hospital discharge

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT06902779

ECHOPHARM

Details and patient eligibility

About

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.

Enrollment: 150 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

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

Trial design

Primary purpose: Supportive Care

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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150 participants in 2 patient groups

Control arm

No Intervention group

Description:

Participants in the control arm will benefit from the usual standard of care currently provided in routine clinical practice. Physicians performs medication reconciliation on their own and hand-out the prescription to the patient the day of discharge. The patient then goes to the pharmacy for a classical drug dispensation.

Intervention arm

Experimental group

Description:

Participants in the intervention group will benefit from the hospital pharmacist's support to optimize medication management and ensure a safe and effective discharge process.

Treatment:

Other: Support of the hospital pharmacist for the medication management at hospital discharge