How Transitions of Care Services Prevent Adverse Drug Events and Unnecessary Readmissions

In today’s healthcare landscape, hospital executives are looking for innovative ways to decrease readmissions, reduce cost, and improve their patient care capabilities. Pharmacist-led Transitions of Care programs have proven to deliver each of these for hospitals and health systems.

Upon hospital discharge, patients are vulnerable to harmful adverse drug events (ADEs). These can then result in a number of consequences for a healthcare organization, such as non-compliance and preventable re-admissions. Ultimately, these can cost a hospital as much as $14,000 per episode.

For a properly prepared hospital, discharge medication reconciliation services can decrease these medication-related issues and unnecessary hospital readmissions. These solutions also create a systematic and efficient workflow while improving reimbursement rates and HCAHPS scores. This provides dramatic, measurable benefits to caregivers, staff, and patients alike.

Compromised Patient Safety

Patient discharges present significant challenges. Patients:

• Often leave the hospital confused and don’t know how to take their prescriptions properly
• Don’t fill their prescriptions – approximately 20% of patients neglecting to do so
• May duplicate or miss prescriptions, sometimes taking medications not in their care plan
• May experience an ADE – approximately 19% of Medicare discharges are followed by an ADE within 30 days

[Sources: Medicare hospital readmissions: Issues, Policy options, and PPACA; Dartmouth Atlas project; Health Research and Education Trust]

In consideration of these statistics, hospitals would do well to consider a solution that covers admission and discharge medication reconciliation, discharge counseling, and post-discharge follow-up. These can reduce medication-related readmissions by up to 50% in high-risk populations and mitigate some of these challenges.

Transitions of Care from CPS TELEpharmacy

Through the CPS TELEpharmacy Transitions of Care solution, our team supports your existing or can help develop an admission, discharge, and follow-up care program from our home office in Naperville, IL. Our team of licensed and experienced clinical pharmacists empowers hospitals and health care organizations with additional resources and bandwidth to help decrease harmful ADEs and readmissions. This is done through the improvement of the medication reconciliation process and the delivery of 24/7/365 medication expertise and patient education.

Our complete solution covers:

Medication Reconciliation

• Identifies and corrects variances before admission medication reconciliation to help prevent harmful adverse drug events
• Reports to hospital care teams for therapy optimization and improved patient safety

Discharge Medication Reconciliation and Counseling

• Provides pharmacist review of discharge medication orders
• Allows for pharmacist counseling via telephonic or video conferencing
• Enhances education via web-based video content

Post-discharge Support

• Provides 30 days post-discharge support
• Delivers 24/7/365 access to a clinical pharmacist via phone or other communications
• Handles call scheduling to patient homes

Post-acute Review

• Reviews all medications and performs medication reconciliation
• Provides intervention recommendations to facility
• Communicates via phone, fax, VPS, or secure mail
• Coordinates with stakeholders and schedules follow-ups

Driving Results

The CPS TELEpharmacy Transitions of Care solution helps improve patient outcomes through increased patient engagement and understanding of their medications. This in turn drives higher satisfaction for patients and reduces nursing and physician burnout.

One study showed that a pharmacist-led Transitions of Care program helped decrease 30-day all-cause readmission by 5%, while another study revealed that interventions provided by a Transitions of Care team increased HCAHPS scores by 14.7%.

For more information on how CPS TELEpharmacy Transitions of Care can support your organization’s goals, visit: https://www.cpspharm.com/cps-telepharmacy/transitions-of-care-services/