Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

This article outlines the incidence and risk of medication errors in older home health care patients and reasons why improving medication management has become a national priority. The article also describes an initiative that was developed to improve geriatric medication management. The Visiting Nurse Associations of America (VNAA) Curricula for Homecare Advances in Management and Practice (CHAMP) program offers a multimodal, geriatric care, quality improvement educational approach that includes an online course, coaching calls, in-person workshops, and a faculty-moderated peer-to-peer support listserv. The target audience is home care frontline nurse and therapy managers. Course topics include mastering medication assessment and reconciliation, monitoring for complications, and improving patient adherence. In addition, the course includes strategies to help embed the capacity for continuous practice improvement within agencies.

Keywords

geriatrics medication management patient safety quality improvement

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adamski, P. (2005). Medication management: A patient safety priority . Nursing Management, 36(10), 14.

Coleman, E.A. , Smith, J.D. , Raha, D. , & Min, S. (2005). Post-hospital medication discrepancies: Prevalence, types, and contributing system-level and patient-level factors. Archives of Internal Medicine, 16, 1842-1847.

Curtis, L.H. , Ostbye, T. , Sendersky, V. , Hitchison, S. , Dans, P.E. , Wright, A. , et al. (2004). Inappropriate prescribing for elderly Americans in a large outpatient population. Archives of Internal Medicine , 164, 1621-1625.

Dartnell, J.G. , Robert, P.A. , & Chohan, V. (1996). Hospitalization for adverse events related to drug therapy: Incidence, avoidability, and costs. Medical Journal of Australia, 164, 659-662.

Einarson, T.R. (1993). Drug-related hospital admissions. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 27, 832-840.

Forster, A.J. , Murff, H.J. , Peterson, J.F. , Gandhi, T.K. , & Bates, D.W. (2003). The incidence and severity of adverse events affecting patients after discharge from the hospital. Annals of Internal Medicine, 138, 161-167.

Golden, A.G. , Preston, R.A. , Barnett, S.D. , Llorente, M. , Hamdan, K. , & Silverman, M.A. (1999). Inappropriate medication prescribing in homebound older adults. Journal of the American Geriatric Society, 47, 948-953.

Gurwitz, J.H. , Field, T.S. , Harrold, L.R. , Rothschild, J. , Debellis, K. , Seger, A.C. , et al. (2003). Incidence and preventability of adverse drug events among older persons in the ambulatory setting. Journal of the American Medical Association, 289, 1107-1116.

Institute of Medicine. (2000). To err is human: Building a safer health system. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

10.

Institute of Medicine. (2001). Crossing the quality chasm: A new health system for the 21st century. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

11.

Institute of Medicine. (2003). Priority areas for national action: Transforming health care quality. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality . Retrieved March 27, 2007, from http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/iompriorities.htm

12.

Juurlink, D.N. , Mamdani, M. , Kopp, A. , Laupacis, A. , & Redelmeier, D.A. (2003). Drug-drug interactions among elderly patients hospitalized for drug toxicity. Journal of the American Medical Association, 13, 1652-1658.

13.

McDonnell, P.J. , & Jacobs, M.R. (2002). Hospital admissions resulting from preventable adverse drug reactions. Annals of Pharmacotherapy, 36, 1331-1336.

14.

Meredith, S. , Feldman, P.H. , Frey, D. , Hall, K. , Arnold, K. , Brown, N.J. , et al. (2001). Possible medication errors in home healthcare patients. Journal of American Geriatric Society, 49, 719-724.

15.

Moore, C. , Wisnivesky, J. , Williams, S. , & McGinn, T. (2003). Medical errors related to discontinuity of care from an inpatient to an outpatient setting. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18, 646-651.

16.

Sorensen, L. , Stokes, J.A. , Purdie, D.M. , Woodward, M. , & Roberts, M.S. (2006). Medication management at home: Medication risk factor prevalence and inter-relationships. Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Therapeutics, 31, 485-491.

17.

Zhan, C. , Sangl, J. , Bierman, A.S. , Miller, M.R. , Friedman, B. , Wickizer, S.W. , et al. (2001). Potentially inappropriate medication use in the community-dwelling elderly: Findings from the 1996 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. Journal of the American Medical Association , 286, 2823-2829.

Finding Success in Medication Management

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References