Pharmaceutical Intervention Program at Readmission and User Satisfaction in a Emergency Department

Impact of a Pharmaceutical Intervention Program at Readmission and User Satisfaction in a Emergency Department, Randomized Clinical Study

A randomized clinical trial with two parallel groups (control and intervened) in the Emergency Department (ED) at the Clinical Hospital of the University of Chile will take place. The sample will be of 996 patients (498 per group).

The control group will receive hospital care and discharge plan usual, while the intervention group also receive a Program of Pharmaceutical Interventions while in the service and at discharge, which includes an analysis of the therapy recommended by the physician, assessing the safer alternatives for the patient population and the special conditions of their pathology, emphasizing evaluations of effectiveness, safety and tolerability of medication, drug interactions, potential adverse events, dose adjustments as needed according to the patient's condition ; verification that the administration is optimal, including choosing the best route to this and the time when the drugs are infused into the patient.Interventions aimed at patient occur during the stay and at discharge, focusing on clarifying administration regimens, reasons for using drugs, prevent drug-related problems, clarify doubts and educate about pharmacotherapy and make a reinforcement of adherence.

The selection and patient recruitment will take place during the first hour of admission to care box, where they were invited to participate and signed informed consent.

In both groups, a doctor and a pharmacist, blind to treatment assignment, will gather information during the stay, discharge and post-discharge, the latter by telephone 30 days after discharge from the ED, in this second interview also verify the existence of a readmission and / or unscheduled medical consultation. In addition, discharge of each patient satisfaction was measured with respect to the service received by a user satisfaction survey applied by external and impartial staff. In addition, two independent trained evaluators (Emergency Medical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry), blinded to treatment assignment, evaluate the background of each case and by consensus allocated the presence of problems related to drugs, and classified as preventable or not preventable, according severity.

X2 test or Fisher exact test was used to test the hypothesis that the Programme of Pharmaceutical Interventions decreases at least 30% the user dissatisfaction compared with usual care in the ED.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Personal Satisfaction
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: patient education/ recommendations to the health team

Detailed Description

Process:

For the selection of patients, a research team consisting of a Physician and a Pharmaceutical Chemist review the inclusion and exclusion criteria within the first hour after the patient enters the care box. Patients who meet the selection criteria are invited to participate in the study and sign the informed consent form. To standardize the sampling and avoid differences by daily or seasonal variation are included in the study of 6 patients per day.

For each of the included patients, information will be collected that allows the characterization: sociodemographic, which includes: sex, age, foresight, schooling, marital status; Morbid antecedents before, during the care and after the high diagnostic illness, reason of admission and previous hospitalizations; Pharmacotherapeutic which includes medicines used, dosage, self-medication, adherence (Morisky & Green Scale), performed before, during the stay in the emergency department and high and post discharge. In addition, the Triage category and the duration of the stay are recorded.

In both groups, a physician and a pharmacist, blind to the allocation of treatment, collect the demographic, morbid and pharmacotherapeutic antecedents, by means of a file specially designed for the study. The post-discharge evaluation is done through the telephone interview 30 days after the discharge from the US.

All information collected on the follow-up sheets of each study patient will be added to an Excel® database. A project investigator will be responsible for ensuring the monitoring of the study, ensuring that Good Clinical Practices are complied with, as well as the quality and reliability of the information recorded on both the records and the database. Both the database and each of the study collection records will include only a patient identification code, in order to maintain their confidentiality. The list that relates the code to the patient's name will be kept protected with access only to the principal investigator.

In the case of the patients who are part of the intervention group, in addition to the care received by the control group, I received a pharmaceutical care program aimed at improving drug use and patient safety. It includes a finished analysis of the therapy indicated by the physician, evaluating the safer alternatives for the type of patient and the special conditions of his pathology, emphasizing evaluations of the effectiveness, safety and tolerability of the medication, drug interactions, possible events Adverse effects, dose adjustments by sea, patient conditions; Verification of what the sea of optimal management, including the choice of the best route for the shelf and the time in which the medicines are infused to the patient.

The intervention is performed at moments one during the stay in the service where they communicate and educate the patient about all the medications indicated and the relationship, which have their health status, as well as the benefits and expected results with their administration. A second moment just after high medicine, where the same review of medications is done and recommendations are given to the patient on how to administer them, promoting adherence to treatment. In addition to all the knowledge he has about his pathology and treatment.

To see that the patient started therapy, the last 7 days after discharge / transfer of the Emergency Service, a member of the team communicated by telephone with the patient. In case you have not started looking for the factors that affected your behavior.

At 30 days after discharge / transfer, an independent external evaluator, blinded to pharmaceutical care, who will not know the group to which the patient belongs, will be contacted by telephone and evaluated again, in addition to consulting medical prescriptions Received and medications purchased to evaluate hospital readmissions or unscheduled medical consultations.

If an error is detected in the control group, it will be communicated to the health team

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 1001
• Phase: Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patients admitted to the emergency department of clinical hospital of the University of Chile
• Patients who sign the informed consent form
• Patients in triage categories C2, C3, C4 and C5

Exclusion Criteria:

• Patients with inability to communicate and don't have a responsible caregiver to provide reliable information about the patient's therapy
• Patients who are participating in another study
• Patients not taking drugs regularly and who don't receive them during care in the ED

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Supportive Care
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: Control; The control group will receive the usual hospital care. In addition, an interview that allows the characterization of the sample and the measurement of variables such as adherence, problems related to medication and user satisfaction.
Experimental: Intervened; The intervention group will receive a Pharmaceutical Intervention Program during their stay in the Service and discharge. In addition, an interview that allows the characterization of the sample and the measurement of variables such as adherence, problems related to medication and user satisfaction. patient education/ recommendations to the health team	Other: patient education/ recommendations to the health team; The intervention group will receive a Pharmaceutical Intervention Program during their stay in the Service and discharge that includes an analysis of the therapy indicated by the physician, evaluating the safer alternatives for the type of patient and the special conditions of their pathology, with emphasis on Assessments of effectiveness, safety and tolerability of medication, drug interactions, possible adverse events, dose adjustments as necessary according to patient conditions; Verification that the administration is optimal, including the choice of the best route for this and the time in which the drugs are infused to the patient.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Time Frame
User satisfaction	4 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Readmission		4 months
Drug Related Problem		4 months
Adherence measured by four question Morisky-Green test	If the patient answers all question "NO", the patient is adherent. Measured in two times in the study. The proportion of adherent patients will be measured with respect to the total of them.	5 months
Proportion of recommendations to the health team accepted	Recommendations made by a clinical pharmacist can be accepted or rejected. The measurement will be (accepted recommendations/total of recommendations) x100	4 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Chile
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Matías Martínez, Msc, University of Chile

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): March 1, 2015
• Primary Completion (Actual): December 1, 2015
• Study Completion (Actual): December 1, 2015

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 6, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 11, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): April 17, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 19, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 18, 2017
• Last Verified: April 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Emergency department; Readmission; Pharmaceutical intervention; User satisfaction
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Pathologic Processes; Disease Attributes; Emergencies
• Other Study ID Numbers: UCh2015

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No