Pharmacist Medication Counseling

Topic Suggestion

1. What is the decision or change you are facing or struggling with where a summary of the evidence would be helpful?

We are interested in investigating the impact of pharmacist medication counseling of older, high risk patients, on medication adherence, quality-of-life, and healthcare cost versus no pharmacist medication counseling. Specifically, we are interested in performing a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) studying this intervention and outcomes.

2. Why are you struggling with this issue?

A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs showed that pharmacist medication counseling, versus no pharmacist counseling, improves the relative risk (RR) for medication adherence, and reduces the RR for 30-day hospital readmissions and emergency room visits significantly. The unanswered questions are: 1) does quality-of-life (QoL) also improve? and, 2) is total healthcare cost reduced with this intervention?

3. What do you want to see changed? How will you know that your issue is improving or has been addressed?

Medication adherence average about 50%. Based on the evidence, healthcare utilization decreases significantly when medication adherence => 80%. It has been shown that pharmacists can improve medication adherence, but the intervention is not yet the standard of practice in most locations. A systemic review and meta-analysis of RCTs will be able to provide the evidence of whether pharmacist medication counseling (versus no such counseling) improves QoL and reduces healthcare cost significantly.

4. When do you need the evidence report? Fri, 09/30/2022

Fri, 09/30/2022

5. What will you do with the evidence report?

Poor medication adherence is estimated to result in 125,000 deaths at an estimated cost of $100 billion each year. The estimated cost for a 30-day readmission averages $61.6 billion a year, More than this, patients with poor medication adherence (more likely than not) have a poorer QoL, or do they? If the results of this study show a significant improvement in QoL and reduced health care cost, coupled with the results of the previous study showing reductions in healthcare utilization, may provide enough evidence to shift healthcare policy and incentives to making pharmacist medication counseling a higher priority and standard of practice.

Supporting Document

Citation: William Kelly, et al. Association of Pharmacist Counseling with Adherence, Readmission, and Mortality: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials. January 2020.

Title or short description: Impact of Pharmacist Counseling on Healthcare Utiliztion

Comments or notes about this file: Our previous study.

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Healthcare researcher

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