Clinical pharmacist and pharmaceutical interventions in HBH unit: a French observational study.

Objectives: Home-Based Hospital (HBH) services concern patients of all ages suffering from conditions requiring technical care, close clinical monitoring, or hospital treatments that would normally be provided during hospitalisation. Drug-related problems are common in chronically-ill patients and many such events are preventable. Nevertheless, little data is available for outpatients, especially for HBH unit patients. The aim of the study was to assess the rates and types of drug-related problems prevented and resolved by the clinical pharmacist in a Home-Based Hospital unit.Methods: The drug-related problems were registered prospectively by the clinical pharmacist from May 2011 to April 2015. These pharmaceutical interventions were analysed according to the intervention tool recommended by the French Society of Clinical Pharmacy (Act IP).Results: 20,195 medication prescriptions relating to 2,878 patients were analysed. We registered 388 drug-related problems involving 267 patients (71.2% female; mean age 32.1 ± 29.7 years), mainly concerning untreated conditions (24.2%), drugs used without indications (14.7%), non-conformity to guidelines or contra-indication (12.6%) and drug monitoring (12.4%). Pharmaceutical interventions involved 186 drugs, mainly for hematopoiesis, infections and the digestive system (34%, 16.5%, and 14.6%, respectively). 87.6% of the pharmacist's recommendations were accepted.Conclusions: A formatted clinical pharmacist evaluation was able to detect a high level of drug-related problems, and prevent complications in patients cared for by a Home-Based Hospital unit.

Preterm premature rupture of membranes: Which criteria contraindicate home care management?

INTRODUCTION: Home care management offers a suitable alternative to hospitalization for management of preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM). Eligibility criteria have not been clearly established. Our aim was to determine predictive factors of complication during home care management of PPROM in order to define optimal eligibility criteria. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Retrospective cohort study of all women with singleton pregnancies with PPROM managed as outpatients between 2009 and 2015. Complications were defined as the occurrence of one of these events: fetal death, placental abruption, umbilical cord prolapse, delivery outside maternity hospital, neonatal death. RESULTS: In all, 187 women with PPROMs were managed as outpatients, of whom 12 had a complication (6.4%). In the "complication" group, gestational age at diagnosis (P = 0.006) and at delivery (P < 0.001) were lower, with no difference in latency between these two events. Three criteria significantly increased the risk for a severe complication: PPROM occurring before 26 weeks (P = 0.008), non-cephalic fetal presentation (P = 0.02) and oligoamnios (P = 0.02). When unfavorable criteria were associated with PPROM, the risk was increased (1 criterion, odds ratio [OR] 1.6; 2 criteria, OR 6.9 and 3 criteria, OR 32.8). CONCLUSIONS: Combination of these three criteria is an indication for conventional hospitalization to limit maternal and fetal morbidity. When two criteria are combined, home care should be discussed for each case. If only one unfavorable criteria is present, outpatient management is suitable. To validate these results, a prospective randomized study should be conducted.