A new spin on transitions of care: Pharmacists bridging the gap between inpatient and outpatient settings

Implementing Transitions of Care Services in a Primary Care Clinic: Role of the Pharmacist

IntroductionPharmacists in primary care clinics improve medication adherence and reduce medication errors but these require further investigation to determine its potential impact on health care readmission rates. Methods: This review assessed the addition of a clinical pharmacist to the primary care provider's transitions of care appointment. The primary outcome of this review was the change in acute health care encounters (hospital readmissions and/or Emergency Department visits) in the 6-month period before to the 6 months following initial clinical pharmacist intervention. Each patient served as their own control. Secondary outcomes included the number and types of pharmacist interventions, percentage of pharmacist recommendations accepted, number and categories of drug-related problems (DRPs), nonadherence reasons, 30-day hospital readmission rate, 30-day Emergency Department (ED) rate, time to first hospital readmission, time to first ED readmission, and preventable readmission rate. Results: The total number of combined acute health care encounters in 6 months decreased by 15% from 280 at baseline to 238 after pharmacist intervention (P = .087) for the 206 patients included in the final analysis. The 30-day hospital readmission rate was 9.7% and the median time between first hospital readmission was 54.5 days (IQR 63.5). We identified a total number of 310 DRPs with a mean of 1.5 DRPs (SD 1.3) identified per patient. The providers accepted 88% of the pharmacists' recommendations. Conclusions: Clinical pharmacists embedded in a primary care setting demonstrated improved patient care during transitions of care by identifying and resolving drug-related problems, with a trend in decreasing acute health care utilization.

Effect of pharmacy-led interventions during care transitions on patient hospital readmission: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) established the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) to reduce reimbursement payments to hospitals with excessive patient readmissions. Because of this program, hospitals have developed transitions of care (TOC) programs to improve patient outcomes.

OBJECTIVES

To identify and uniformly summarize the impact of pharmacy-led TOC interventions on 30-day readmission rates since the implementation of CMS HRRP.

METHODS

This study followed an a-priori protocol that was registered to International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews. A systematic search was conducted using PubMed, EMBASE, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, and CINAHL from January 1, 2013 through January 14, 2022. Studies were included if they met the following criteria: pharmacy-led intervention, 30-day readmission outcomes, patients at least 18 years old, original research performed in the United States, and English language only articles. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize study characteristics, outcomes, and elements of the study interventions.

RESULTS

A total of 1964 abstracts were screened with 123 studies being included in the review. A total of 110 (89.4%) studies showed a decrease in readmission rates. The largest decrease in readmission rates was 44.5% (range 0.2%-44.5%, median = 7.4%) and the most common pharmacy-led intervention was patient counseling (n = 119, 96.7%) followed by medication reconciliation (n = 111, 90.2%). High-risk patient populations were commonly targeted with 52 studies (42.3%) focusing on CMS HRRP related diagnoses.

CONCLUSION

Most pharmacist-led TOC interventions contributed to lower rates of 30-day readmission. Future studies should investigate the types of interventions that most significantly impact readmission rates.

Assessing the impact of adding pharmacist management services to an existing discharge planning program on 30-day readmissions

BACKGROUND

Although hospital readmission rates are declining nationally, avoidable readmissions remain a public health concern. Effective readmission interventions are multifaceted and include discharge planning and transition-of-care coordination. Clinical pharmacists are effective contributors to these processes, bringing expertise to discharge counseling, medication reconciliation, medication adherence, and postdischarge follow-up counseling.

OBJECTIVE

We evaluated the impact of adding health plan clinical pharmacy management services to an existing discharge program on all-cause readmissions and postdischarge primary physician visits.

METHOD

Pharmacy management services by health plan clinical pharmacists of a large regional integrated delivery system were added to an existing optimal discharge planning (ODP) program. Criteria for eligibility for these pharmacists' services included patients who prescribed a new maintenance medication after discharge, received a therapeutic substitution, had a previous discharge within 30 days, or were taking a high-risk medication. A retrospective, observational analysis of a subgroup of patients, who received the pharmacy management services as part of ODP, was performed using a difference-in-difference model, by comparing propensity-matched discharges from February 22, 2016, to January 31, 2017 (preprogram implementation) with discharges from February 22, 2017, to January 31, 2018 (implementation period), to estimate changes in 30-day readmission rates and postdischarge primary physician visits.

RESULTS

A total of 111 of the propensity matched received the pharmacy management services; of these, 73% (ODP) versus 64% (non-ODP) were ≥ 58 years, 60% were females, and 62% (ODP) versus 52% (non-ODP) were Medicare beneficiaries. There was a 16.7% (P = 0.022) statistically significant reduction in combined inpatient and observation 30-day readmissions and a 19.7% increase in 5-day postdischarge follow-up physician visits (P = 0.037) for the subgroup who also received the pharmacy management services.

CONCLUSION

Addition of pharmacist management services to an existing hospital discharge program for select at-risk patients was associated with reduced inpatient and observation 30-day readmissions.

Role of the Pharmacist in Managing Treatment-Resistant Depression: A Focus on Ketamine

The impact of depression is well described in the literature, and it is most prominent in patients who have trialed multiple treatments. Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is particularly debilitating, and it is associated with significant morbidity and mortality. Despite this, there seems to be therapeutic inertia in adopting novel therapies in current practice. Ketamine is an N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist and anesthetic agent which has recently been shown to be effective in the management of TRD when administered intravenously or intranasally. The treatments, however, are not easily accessible due to restrictions in prescribing and dispensing, high costs, and the slow uptake of evidence-based practice involving ketamine within the Canadian healthcare system. Given the limited treatment options for TRD, novel approaches should be considered and adopted into practice, and facilitated by a multi-disciplinary approach. Pharmacists play a critical role in ensuring access to quality care. This includes dissemination of evidence supporting pharmacological treatments and facilitating translation into current practice. Pharmacists are uniquely positioned to collaborate with prescribers and assess novel treatment options, such as ketamine, address modifiable barriers to treatment, and triage access to medications during transitions of care. Extending the reach of these novel psychiatric treatments in both tertiary and primary care settings creates an emerging role for pharmacists in the collaborative effort to better manage treatment-resistant depression.