Implementation of a telepharmacy service to provide the Cross-institution active pharmaceutical care.

Residents of long-term care institutions are mostly elderly people who usually suffer from multiple chronic diseases and need to use multiple drugs at the same time. Studies have shown that on average, institutional residents use more than 6 medicines a day, and those who use 5 medicines at the same time have a 50% drug-drug interaction. The current long-term care institutions usually have no full-time pharmacists to review medication prescriptions, while nursing staff are replaced by simple medication and health education. The quality of medication is worrying.

This article proposes a “cross-institution active telepharmacy service model” for the current long-term care market’s pharmaceutical care needs such as medication guidance, medication comparison, and drug consultation to provide nurses and pharmacists with more convenient pharmaceutical services. , Among which related services include “drug prescription review”, “drug inquiry and identification service” and “remote pharmaceutical consultation service”. Through the promotion of this technology, nurses can focus on the required nursing care work, while pharmacists Cooperating with remote medical care work can achieve the purpose of medical care more efficiently.

A total of 42 cases have been collected. The average age of residents in the two institutions is 75 years old. They suffer from 3 kinds of chronic diseases, and 13 drugs are used on average. The pharmacist found that each resident had an average of 2 medication problems, including 1 potentially inappropriate medication.

After the intervention of telepharmacy, the pharmacist provided an average of 0.64 medication instructions to the nurses and 1.24 medication recommendations to the physicians. Physicians also made an average of 1.26 adjustments to residents’ prescriptions, and nurses’ medication knowledge also increased by 61%. The more active the pharmacist is involved in medication care through telepharmacy, the more the medical team can respect the pharmacist’s profession, and the better they can provide better medication care.

The time of brick-mortar pharmaceutical care for each resident is estimated to be about 6 hours per resident (including transportation and data compilation), which the expedition is calculated about NT. 2504 /resident. The cost of telephamacy takes only 17 minutes per resident, and the expedition of care is about NT.114 /resident, repectively. Through remote pharmaceutical care services, each institution can save about NT. 236,610 per quarter. The application of remote pharmaceutical care is more economical and efficient, and the quality can be maintained. It is a service model worth promoting.

Last Updated on 2023 年 7 月 7 日 by 3535