An Improved Comprehensive Medication Review Process to Assess Healthcare Outcomes in a Rural Independent Community Pharmacy

Abstract

For years many pharmacists have been performing ‘brown bag’ medication reviews for patients. While most pharmacists and student pharmacists are familiar with this process, it is important to determine the value patients receive from this service. Over the course of this study the authors attempted to modernize the medication reconciliation process and collect data on patient prescription drug and over-the-counter drug use, along with quantifying the types of interventions the pharmacy’s clinical staff performed for patients during this process. The pharmacy partnered with a Quality Improvement Organization to trial their Blue Bag Intervention (BBI) program. The BBI program offered several additional services to the traditional brown bag review. The BBI was instituted as a follow-up tool in the pharmacy’s diabetes self-management education/training clinic to aid in patient follow-up and help the clinical staff identify medication-related events such as medication adherence issues and drug–drug interactions. The clinical staff identified approximately 2.2 events per patient with over 50% being issues that affected patient safety.