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Development of a Polypharmacy-Based Outreach System for Pharmacist-Led Annual Wellness Visits
JACCP Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy ; 5(7):735, 2022.
Article in English | EMBASE | ID: covidwho-2003607
ABSTRACT

Introduction:

Less than 20% of Medicare beneficiaries receive an Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) each year. Employing non-physician professionals to perform AWVs is one strategy to overcome the underutilization. Previous studies suggested polypharmacy as a way to operationalize pharmacy-led AWVs. However, the effectiveness of using a simple electronic medical record (EMR) outreach to recruit patients, with a goal of addressing medication-related problems (MRPs) and impacting quality measures, has not been fully investigated yet. Research Question or

Hypothesis:

Do numbers of polypharmacybased outreach correlate with numbers of pharmacist-led AWV appointments within a healthcare system? Study

Design:

Prospective cross-sectional study using EMR records

Methods:

Outreach was conducted from December 2021 to February 2022 by either pharmacists or non-pharmacist team members via EMR messaging in six primary care clinics. Targeted patients were AWVeligible Medicare beneficiaries with ≥7 medications. Patients who were ≥90 years of age, had their last primary-care visit >1 year, or 'did not have an active EMR portal were excluded. The number of scheduled AWV visits were tracked as the primary outcome, and types of interventions made were collected for the secondary objective. Spearman correlation between the number of the outreach and AWV appointments was evaluated, using JMP Pro v.16, with significance level at 0.05.

Results:

The number of outreaches correlated to the number of AWVs scheduled (Spearman's rho=0.83, p=0.04) and MRPs identified (Spearman's rho=0.89, p=0.02). A total of 108 AWVs were conducted with 21 medications and 114 labs ordered, 15 referrals and 38 imaging/procedure placed, 16 vaccines given, 27 care gaps addressed, and 190 MRPs identified. Reported barriers to scheduling AWVs included appointment availability and COVID-related changes in workflow.

Conclusion:

The number of polypharmacy-based outreaches conducted was correlated with the number of pharmacist-led AWV appointments and MRPs identified during the visits. Although pharmacists have demonstrated proficiency at conducting AWVs, additional challenges were identified to operationalize pharmacyled AWVs.
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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: EMBASE Language: English Journal: JACCP Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Year: 2022 Document Type: Article

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Full text: Available Collection: Databases of international organizations Database: EMBASE Language: English Journal: JACCP Journal of the American College of Clinical Pharmacy Year: 2022 Document Type: Article