A/Prof. Laetitia Hattingh1,2,3, Ms Hayley Hirsch1, Dr Matt Percival1,2, Dr Kate Johnston1, Dr Georgia Tobiano1,2, Dr Salim Memon1, Ms Noela Baglot1, Prof Rohan Jayasinghe1, Dr Carl de Wet4, Prof Mark Morgan5, Prof Brigid Gillespie1,2
1Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service, Gold Coast, Australia, 2Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia, 3University of Queensland, Gold Coast, Australia, 4South West Hospital and Health Service4, Gold Coast, Australia, 5Bond University, Gold Coast, Australia
Biography:
A/Prof. Laetitia Hattingh is a clinician-researcher and pharmacist at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service (GCHHS), A/Director of Allied Health Research, Adjunct A/Prof with Griffith University and Principal Research Fellow with University of Queensland. She has various research leadership roles at GCHHS, including chairing the GCHHS Allied Health Research and Innovation Leadership Committee. She is a member of Research Council, the Clinical Trials Advisory Committee and the Medication Safety Committee. At a statewide level, she co-chairs the Queensland Pharmacy Research and Medication Trials Sub-Committee and a member of the Health Translation Queensland Consumer and Community Involvement Community of Practice.
Abstract:
Introduction:
Hospital pharmacists and doctors collaborate to reconcile patients’ medicine and prepare up-to-date medicine information at discharge. This pilot study evaluated the outcomes of a multifaceted intervention to improve medicine information handover at hospital discharge.
Methods:
Evaluation involved a comparison of intervention patient discharge medicine information handover with control patients and a time-and-motion observation. Eligible general medicine patients >65 years were recruited on Wednesdays and Thursdays, 19 June to 28 August 2024; control patients were discharged Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Time-and-motion observations conducted over two weeks (July – August 2024) compared medicine handover reconciliation conducted by pharmacists (intervention cohort) and doctors (control cohort).
Results:
Most of the 52 intervention and 50 control patients were male (34/52, 65.5%; 32/50, 64.0%); average age was 78.6 and 77.7 years. Medicine reconciliation was completed at the time of discharge for 50/52 (96.2%) of intervention and 34/50 (68.0%) of control patients (p<0.0001); more intervention electronic discharge summaries (EDS) included all medicines compared to control summaries (p=0.059); pharmacists were involved in all intervention compared to 90.0% (45/50) of control discharges (p=0.025). EDS of intervention patients were sent to general practitioners (GPs) within 4.3 days and 9.2 days for control patients (p=0.072). Time-and-motion observation of 18 discharges (9 intervention, 9 control) showed pharmacist discharge medicine information handover time was reduced by 32 minutes between intervention and control cohorts.
Conclusion:
The multifaceted intervention reduced the time required to complete discharge medicine handover information, facilitated patient discharge, and reduced the time period of sending EDS to GPs.