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Research Studies is a monthly compilation of research articles funded by AHRQ or authored by AHRQ researchers and recently published in journals or newsletters.
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1 to 18 of 18 Research Studies Displayed
Taber DJ, Fleming JN, Su Z
Significant hospitalization cost savings to the payer with a pharmacist-led mobile health intervention to improve medication safety in kidney transplant recipients.
This paper examined hospitalization cost savings to the payer with a pharmacist-led mobile health intervention to improve medication safety in kidney transplant recipients. This study was an economic analysis of a 12-month, parallel arm, randomized controlled trial in adult kidney recipients 6 to 36 months posttransplant (NCT03247322). All participants received usual posttransplant care, while the intervention arm received supplemental clinical pharmacist-led medication therapy monitoring and management, via a smartphone-enabled mHealth app, integrated with risk-based televisits.
AHRQ-funded; HS023754.
Citation:
Taber DJ, Fleming JN, Su Z .
Significant hospitalization cost savings to the payer with a pharmacist-led mobile health intervention to improve medication safety in kidney transplant recipients.
Am J Transplant 2021 Oct;21(10):3428-35. doi: 10.1111/ajt.16737..
Keywords:
Healthcare Costs, Provider: Pharmacist, Telehealth, Health Information Technology (HIT), Transplantation, Hospitalization, Medication: Safety, Medication
Gilson AM, Stone JA, Morris AO
Impact of a pilot community pharmacy system redesign on reducing over-the-counter medication misuse in older adults.
This pilot study’s goal was to decrease misuse of over-the-counter (OTC) medications by older adults aged 65 years or older by creating a pharmacy “Senior Section”. The Senior Section contains a curated selection of OTC medications and it located close to the prescription department to facilitate pharmacy staff-patient engagement to reduce misuse. The study recruited 87 older adults from 3 pharmacies. Misuse outcomes measured were drug-drug, drug-disease, drug-age, and drug-label, with 5 subtypes. The Senior Section reduced drug-label misuse for different models. Misuse was found to decrease after implementation for 7 of 11 comparisons.
AHRQ-funded; HS024490.
Citation:
Gilson AM, Stone JA, Morris AO .
Impact of a pilot community pharmacy system redesign on reducing over-the-counter medication misuse in older adults.
J Am Pharm Assoc (2003) 2021 Sep-Oct;61(5):555-64. doi: 10.1016/j.japh.2021.04.007..
Keywords:
Elderly, Provider: Pharmacist, Medication, Medication: Safety
De Oliveira GS, Castro-Alves LJ, Kendall MC
Effectiveness of pharmacist intervention to reduce medication errors and health-care resources utilization after transitions of care: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
The main objective of the current investigation was to examine the effectiveness of pharmacist-based transition-of-care interventions on the reduction of medication errors after hospital discharge. Findings showed that pharmacist transition-of-care intervention is an effective strategy to reduce medication errors after hospital discharge and also reduces subsequent emergency room visits.
AHRQ-funded; HS024158.
Citation:
De Oliveira GS, Castro-Alves LJ, Kendall MC .
Effectiveness of pharmacist intervention to reduce medication errors and health-care resources utilization after transitions of care: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
J Patient Saf 2021 Aug 1;17(5):375-80. doi: 10.1097/pts.0000000000000283..
Keywords:
Medication: Safety, Medication, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Adverse Events, Medical Errors, Patient Safety, Provider: Pharmacist, Transitions of Care
Gonzales HM, Fleming JN, Gebregziabher M
Pharmacist-led mobile health intervention and transplant medication safety: a randomized controlled clinical trial.
The goal of this study was to examine the efficacy of improving medication safety through a pharmacist-led, mobile health-based intervention. In this single-center study of adult kidney recipients 6-36 months post-transplant, findings showed that participants receiving the intervention experienced a significant reduction in medication errors and a significantly lower incidence risk of Grade 3 or higher adverse events. The intervention arm also demonstrated significantly lower rates of hospitalizations.
AHRQ-funded; HS023754.
Citation:
Gonzales HM, Fleming JN, Gebregziabher M .
Pharmacist-led mobile health intervention and transplant medication safety: a randomized controlled clinical trial.
Clin J Am Soc Nephrol 2021 May 8;16(5):776-84. doi: 10.2215/cjn.15911020..
Keywords:
Medication: Safety, Medication, Patient Safety, Transplantation, Telehealth, Health Information Technology (HIT), Provider: Pharmacist, Provider, Medical Errors, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Adverse Events
Gurwitz JH, Kapoor A, Garber L
Effect of a multifaceted clinical pharmacist intervention on medication safety after hospitalization in persons prescribed high-risk medications: a randomized clinical trial.
The purpose of this study was to determine whether a multifaceted clinical pharmacist intervention improves medication safety for patients who are discharged from the hospital and prescribed medications within 1 or more of these high-risk drug classes: anticoagulants, diabetes agents, and opioids. The randomized clinical trial was conducted at a large multidisciplinary group practice in Massachusetts and included patients 50 years or older. Findings showed that there was not an observed lower rate of adverse drug-related incidents or clinically important medication errors during the posthospitalization period that was associated with a clinical pharmacist intervention.
AHRQ-funded; HS023774.
Citation:
Gurwitz JH, Kapoor A, Garber L .
Effect of a multifaceted clinical pharmacist intervention on medication safety after hospitalization in persons prescribed high-risk medications: a randomized clinical trial.
JAMA Intern Med 2021 May;181(5):610-18. doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.9285..
Keywords:
Elderly, Medication: Safety, Medication, Patient Safety, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Adverse Events, Provider: Pharmacist, Provider
Gilson AM, Xiong KZ, Stone JA
A pharmacy-based intervention to improve safe over-the-counter medication use in older adults.
This study assessed whether the development of a physical redesign that located a curated inventory of lower-risk over-the-counter (OTC) medications proximal to the pharmacy prescription area was helpful to discourage inappropriate use from OTC medications. An area called the Senior Section™ was developed and placed in 4 pharmacies within a single chain. Eight pharmacists and 5 technicians participated in semi-structured interviews which were transcribed. The staff viewed the Senior Section as contributing to notable improvements in proximity, medication safety, convenience, and patient selection behaviors. It also streamlined the coordination of services between pharmacists and technicians and did not interfere with existing pharmacy workflows.
AHRQ-funded; HS024490.
Citation:
Gilson AM, Xiong KZ, Stone JA .
A pharmacy-based intervention to improve safe over-the-counter medication use in older adults.
Res Social Adm Pharm 2021 Mar;17(3):578-87. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.05.008..
Keywords:
Elderly, Medication: Safety, Medication, Patient Safety, Provider: Pharmacist
Kane-Gill SL, Wong A, Culley CM
JA, et al. Transforming the medication regimen review process using telemedicine to prevent adverse events.
The objective of this study was to determine the impact of pharmacist-led telemedicine services on reducing high-risk medication adverse drug events (ADEs) for nursing home (NH) residents using medication reconciliation and prospective medication regimen reviews (MRRs) on admission plus ongoing clinical decision support alerts throughout the residents' stay. Studying residents in four NHs in Southwestern Pennsylvania, findings showed that the intervention group had a 92% lower incidence of alert-specific ADEs than usual care, and all-cause hospitalization was similar between groups, as were 30-day readmissions.
AHRQ-funded; HS02420.
Citation:
Kane-Gill SL, Wong A, Culley CM .
JA, et al. Transforming the medication regimen review process using telemedicine to prevent adverse events.
J Am Geriatr Soc 2021 Feb;69(2):530-38. doi: 10.1111/jgs.16946..
Keywords:
Medication: Safety, Medication, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Adverse Events, Medical Errors, Patient Safety, Telehealth, Health Information Technology (HIT), Provider: Pharmacist, Provider, Clinical Decision Support (CDS), Prevention
Alley L, Novak K, Havlin T
Development and pilot of a prescription drug monitoring program and communication intervention for pharmacists
The authors developed the Resources Encouraging Safe Prescription Opioid and Naloxone Dispensing (RESPOND) Toolkit to enhance community pharmacists' understanding of their role in addressing opioid safety; to improve integration of prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) into daily workflow; and to enhance communication between pharmacists, prescribers, and patients. In this paper, they described the development of the RESPOND Toolkit and summarized their findings from initial pilot testing. They concluded that the RESPOND Toolkit has promise as an effective and scalable approach to providing community pharmacist-tailored training to promote behavioral shifts supporting opioid safety for patients.
AHRQ-funded; HS024227.
Citation:
Alley L, Novak K, Havlin T .
Development and pilot of a prescription drug monitoring program and communication intervention for pharmacists
Res Social Adm Pharm 2020 Oct;16(10):1422-30. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2019.12.023..
Keywords:
Opioids, Substance Abuse, Medication, Medication: Safety, Patient Safety, Tools & Toolkits, Communication, Provider: Pharmacist, Provider, Training
Ailabouni NJ, Marcum ZA, Schmader KE
Medication use quality and safety in older adults: 2018 update.
This study identified four key articles from 2018 that address medication use quality and safety for older adults. The first study highlighted a cluster-randomized trial that utilized a pharmacist-led education-based intervention delivered to both patients and doctors to deprescribe four types of inappropriate medications. The second study from the UK examined the association between anticholinergic exposure, overall and by medication class, and dementia risk in 40,770 older adults. The third study was a Swedish longitudinal cohort study examining the association between antihypertensive medications and incident dementia. The fourth and last study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial and examined the effect of daily low-dose aspirin for primary prevention of cardiac events and hemorrhage in 19,144 community-dwelling older adults.
AHRQ-funded; HS022982.
Citation:
Ailabouni NJ, Marcum ZA, Schmader KE .
Medication use quality and safety in older adults: 2018 update.
J Am Geriatr Soc 2019 Dec;67(12):2458-62. doi: 10.1111/jgs.16243..
Keywords:
Elderly, Medication, Medication: Safety, Patient Safety, Quality of Care, Provider: Pharmacist, Provider
Kurian S, Baloy B, Baird J
Attitudes and perceptions of naloxone dispensing among a sample of Massachusetts community pharmacy technicians.
AHRQ-funded; HS024021.
Citation:
Kurian S, Baloy B, Baird J .
Attitudes and perceptions of naloxone dispensing among a sample of Massachusetts community pharmacy technicians.
J Am Pharm Assoc 2019 Nov-Dec;59(6):824-31. doi: 10.1016/j.japh.2019.08.009..
Keywords:
Medication, Medication: Safety, Opioids, Substance Abuse, Provider: Pharmacist, Provider, Patient Safety
Schiff GD, Klinger E, Salazar A
Screening for adverse drug events: a randomized trial of automated calls coupled with phone-based pharmacist counseling.
In this study, the investigators evaluated an automated telephone surveillance system coupled with transfer to a live pharmacist- to screen potentially drug-related symptoms after newly starting medications for four common primary care conditions: hypertension, diabetes, depression, and insomnia. Systematic automated telephone outreach monitoring coupled with real-time phone referral to a pharmacist identified a substantial number of previously unidentified potentially drug-related symptoms, many of which were validated as probably or possibly related to the drug by the pharmacist or their physicians.
AHRQ-funded; HS021094.
Citation:
Schiff GD, Klinger E, Salazar A .
Screening for adverse drug events: a randomized trial of automated calls coupled with phone-based pharmacist counseling.
J Gen Intern Med 2019 Feb;34(2):285-92. doi: 10.1007/s11606-018-4672-7..
Keywords:
Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Adverse Events, Medication, Medication: Safety, Health Information Technology (HIT), Provider: Pharmacist, Provider, Patient Safety
Hartung DM, Hall J, Haverly SN
Pharmacists' role in opioid safety: a focus group investigation.
This qualitative study explores the pharmacist's role in promoting opioid safety from the perspective of pharmacists and patients. Using focus groups, results showed that pharmacists expressed discomfort filling potentially high-risk opioid prescriptions and noted barriers such as lack of clinical information and discomfort policing high-risk prescribing; and that patients were concerned about pharmacists potentially overstepping their professional responsibilities by interfering with prescribers' clinical decisions.
AHRQ-funded; HS024227.
AHRQ-funded; HS024227.
AHRQ-funded; HS024227.
Citation:
Hartung DM, Hall J, Haverly SN .
Pharmacists' role in opioid safety: a focus group investigation.
Pain Med 2018 Sep;19(9):1799-806. doi: 10.1093/pm/pnx139..
Keywords:
Provider: Pharmacist, Opioids, Medication: Safety, Medication, Patient Safety
Chui MA, Stone JA, Holden RJ
Improving over-the-counter medication safety for older adults: a study protocol for a demonstration and dissemination study.
This study proposes to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention for preventing misuse of high-risk OTC medications by older adults; and to evaluate the implementation of the intervention in community pharmacies. The primary outcome will be a comparison of proportion of older adults who misuse OTC medication from baseline to post-intervention.
AHRQ-funded; HS024490.
Citation:
Chui MA, Stone JA, Holden RJ .
Improving over-the-counter medication safety for older adults: a study protocol for a demonstration and dissemination study.
Res Social Adm Pharm 2017 Sep - Oct;13(5):930-37. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2016.11.006.
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Keywords:
Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Elderly, Medication: Safety, Medication, Provider: Pharmacist
Schroeder SR, Salomon MM, Galanter WL
Cognitive tests predict real-world errors: the relationship between drug name confusion rates in laboratory-based memory and perception tests and corresponding error rates in large pharmacy chains.
The researchers conducted a study to assess the association between error rates in laboratory-based tests of drug name memory and perception and real-world drug name confusion error rates. They found that across two distinct pharmacy chains, there is a strong and significant association between drug name confusion error rates observed in the real world and those observed in laboratory-based tests of memory and perception.
AHRQ-funded; HS021093.
Citation:
Schroeder SR, Salomon MM, Galanter WL .
Cognitive tests predict real-world errors: the relationship between drug name confusion rates in laboratory-based memory and perception tests and corresponding error rates in large pharmacy chains.
BMJ Qual Saf 2017 May;26(5):395-407. doi: 10.1136/bmjqs-2015-005099.
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Keywords:
Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Medical Errors, Medication: Safety, Medication, Provider: Pharmacist
Kennelty KA, Witry MJ, Gehring M
A four-phase approach for systematically collecting data and measuring medication discrepancies when patients transition between health care settings.
This article proposes a four-phase approach for systematically collecting medication data and measuring medication discrepancies between a hospital and community pharmacies. Using this phase-based approach, the study team successfully identified and reported medication discrepancies between a hospital and community pharmacies at the patient, medication, and community pharmacy units of analyses.
AHRQ-funded; HS021984.
Citation:
Kennelty KA, Witry MJ, Gehring M .
A four-phase approach for systematically collecting data and measuring medication discrepancies when patients transition between health care settings.
Res Social Adm Pharm 2016 Jul-Aug;12(4):548-58. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2015.09.001..
Keywords:
Medication, Medication: Safety, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), Patient Safety, Provider: Pharmacist
Kozak MA, Melton JR, Gernant SA
A needs assessment of unused and expired medication disposal practices: a study from the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana.
The investigators sought to describe the extent of the unused and expired medication (UEM) issue in Indiana, identify patient beliefs about UEM, and determine any association between those beliefs and various personal and demographic characteristics. They concluded that there remains a need for more disposal locations for both non-controlled and controlled medication.
AHRQ-funded; HS022119.
Citation:
Kozak MA, Melton JR, Gernant SA .
A needs assessment of unused and expired medication disposal practices: a study from the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana.
Res Social Adm Pharm 2016 Mar-Apr;12(2):336-40. doi: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2015.05.013.
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Keywords:
Medication: Safety, Medication, Patient Safety, Provider: Pharmacist, Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN)
Patel P, Hemmeger H, Kozak MA
Community pharmacist participation in a practice-based research network: a report from the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet).
The researchers described the experiences and opinions of pharmacists serving as site coordinators for the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet). In general, Rx-SafeNet site coordinators appeared to experience increased confidence in research engagement after joining the network. While respondents identified a number of benefits associated with network participation, concerns about potential time constraints remained a key barrier to participation.
AHRQ-funded; HS022119.
Citation:
Patel P, Hemmeger H, Kozak MA .
Community pharmacist participation in a practice-based research network: a report from the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet).
J Am Pharm Assoc (2003) 2015 Nov-Dec;55(6):649-55. doi: 10.1331/JAPhA.2015.14244.
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Keywords:
Community-Based Practice, Medication: Safety, Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN), Provider: Pharmacist
Kozak MA, Gernant SA, Hemmeger HM
Lessons learned in the growth and maturation stages of a community pharmacy practice-based research network: experiences of the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet).
In 2012, the authors reported on their early experiences developing the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet) after establishing the Network in 2010. In this article, they report on lessons learned over the past 3 years.
AHRQ-funded; HS022119.
Citation:
Kozak MA, Gernant SA, Hemmeger HM .
Lessons learned in the growth and maturation stages of a community pharmacy practice-based research network: experiences of the Medication Safety Research Network of Indiana (Rx-SafeNet).
Innov Pharm 2015;6(2).
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Keywords:
Community-Based Practice, Medication: Safety, Medication, Provider: Pharmacist, Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN)
