Many patients receive medical care at home in lieu of the hospital.
Although this type of care is known to reduce overall mortality, readmission rates, and costs, it poses particular risks for drug-related issues.
This study aimed to determine the type and frequency of drug-related problems (DRPs), and the impact of evaluations conducted by clinical pharmacists, for outpatients receiving home-based hospital (HBH) services. DRPs were collected from May 2011 to April 2016 in a HBH unit in France.
From a total of 20,195 prescriptions, 388 drug-related problems involving 267 patients were identified. The majority of these patients were women (71.2%), with a mean age of 32 years. The most frequent issue identified was related to untreated conditions (24.2%), followed by medicines used without indications (14.7%), non-conformity to guidelines or presence of contraindication (12.6%), and drug monitoring (12.4%).
Pharmacists intervened in 186 cases involving medicines for haematopoiesis (34.0%), infectious diseases (16.5%), and the digestive system (14.6%), with 87.6% of the recommendations being accepted by the treating physicians.
The medicines reviews allowed for the detection of a high number of DRPs, suggesting that integrated interventions by clinical pharmacists may optimise patient management and prevent further complications
