There's no place like home-Integrating a pharmacist into the hospital-in-home model.

BACKGROUND: Hospital-in-home (HIH) is an innovative model that provides hospital-level care in a patient's home. Pharmacists can enhance the HIH model through medication reconciliation and medication optimization. OBJECTIVES: To integrate a clinical pharmacist into the HIH model and to conduct a formative evaluation of pharmacist contributions, including medication discrepancy resolution, cost savings, and cost avoidance. PRACTICE DESCRIPTION: This is a prospective quality improvement study conducted at the Veterans Affairs Boston Healthcare System. PRACTICE INNOVATION: We integrated a pharmacist into the HIH model. The pharmacist conducted a medication reconciliation at hospital discharge and after discharge through home video telehealth and provided longitudinal medication management. EVALUATION METHODS: We adapted the PRECEDE-PROCEED model to guide program implementation. We conducted a formative evaluation using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance framework, evaluating the reach, efficacy, adoption, and implementation of the pharmacist in the HIH team. We calculated cost savings associated with pharmacist-managed home intravenous (IV) therapy, cost avoidance from deprescribing, and cost avoidance from earlier hospital discharge. RESULTS: The HIH program enrolled 102 patients from May 2019 to March 2020. The pharmacist completed 99 (97%) discharge and 95 (93%) postdischarge medication reconciliations, most of which 71 (75%) were conducted using home video telehealth. The pharmacist identified and resolved a total of 453 medication discrepancies: 181 (40%) at discharge and 272 (60%) during postdischarge medication reconciliation. A total of 84 (19%) discrepancies were considered high risk. The pharmacist managed 104 days of home IV therapy, resulting in a cost savings of approximately $17,000. The cost avoided by identifying and deprescribing 145 inappropriate medications was approximately $51,000. The cost avoided by earlier hospital discharge was $1.2 million. CONCLUSION: Integrating a pharmacist into the HIH model enables the detection and resolution of medication discrepancies. Cost savings from medication deprescribing, cost avoided from pharmacist-managed home IV therapy, and cost avoided from early hospital discharge totaled $1268 million.

Pharmacist Identification of Medication Therapy Problems Involving Cognition Among Older Adults Followed by a Home-Based Care Team.

BACKGROUND: Dementia, depression, and delirium alone or in combination (3Ds) can threaten independence among older adults, and polypharmacy may further accelerate decline. Clinical pharmacists can play an important role on multidisciplinary home-based care teams by identifying medication therapy problems (MTPs) involving cognition. Within a larger ongoing clinical trial, this paper describes cognition-related MTPs and pharmacist recommendations among older adults with 3Ds followed by a home-based care team. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective analysis of medication data among Medicare Advantage members aged ≥ 65 years living at home in Connecticut with International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision codes related to 3Ds; analyses include the first 105 subjects randomized to the home-based care team from March 2017 to January 2019. Advanced practice registered nurses conducted in-home medication reconciliations along with medical and cognitive assessments. Clinical pharmacists then conducted medication reviews centered on agents treating or exacerbating 3Ds. After review by the study advanced practice registered nurse, geriatrician, and psychiatrist, salient recommendations were forwarded to primary care providers for consideration. Medication therapy problems related to cognition were retrospectively abstracted and classified as: (1) indication: underuse or overuse; (2) effectiveness: ineffective agent or low dose (mainly for antidepressants); and (3) safety: undesirable effect (e.g., impaired cognition, dementia treatment side effects), unsafe medication (e.g., potentially inappropriate medications that can harm cognition), drug interaction, or high dose. RESULTS: Pharmacists identified 166 cognitive MTPs, with a mean (standard deviation) of 1.58 (1.35) [range 0-6] MTPs per subject. Indication MTPs represented 34% of total MTPs, of which 79% involved underuse and 21% overuse; effectiveness represented 13% of total MTPs; and safety represented over half (52%) of all MTPs, with benzodiazepines and anticholinergics frequently implicated. Recommendations commonly included medication reduction (discontinuation 23% and dose reduction 19%). We found MTPs involving cognition among most (79%) patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our study findings support the role of pharmacists on multidisciplinary teams to identify cognitively harmful medications, dementia treatment side effects, and untreated cognitive conditions. CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02945085.

Effect of low-sodium salt substitutes on blood pressure, detected hypertension, stroke and mortality.

OBJECTIVE: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to assess the efficacy of low-sodium salt substitutes (LSSS) as a potential intervention to reduce cardiovascular (CV) diseases. METHODS: Five engines and ClinicalTrials.gov were searched from inception to May 2018. Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) enrolling adult hypertensive or general populations that compared detected hypertension, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), overall mortality, stroke and other CV risk factors in those receiving LSSS versus regular salt were included. Effects were expressed as risk ratios or mean differences (MD) and their 95% CIs. Quality of evidence assessment followed GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) methodology. RESULTS: 21 RCTs (15 in hypertensive (n=2016), 2 in normotensive (n=163) and 4 in mixed populations (n=5224)) were evaluated. LSSS formulations were heterogeneous. Effects were similar across hypertensive, normotensive and mixed populations. LSSS decreased SBP (MD -7.81 mm Hg, 95% CI -9.47 to -6.15, p<0.00001) and DBP (MD -3.96 mm Hg, 95% CI -5.17 to -2.74, p<0.00001) compared with control. Significant increases in urinary potassium (MD 11.46 mmol/day, 95% CI 8.36 to 14.55, p<0.00001) and calcium excretion (MD 2.39 mmol/day, 95% CI 0.52 to 4.26, p=0.01) and decreases in urinary sodium excretion (MD -35.82 mmol/day, 95% CI -57.35 to -14.29, p=0.001) were observed. Differences in detected hypertension, overall mortality, total cholesterol, triglycerides, glucose or BMI were not significant. Quality of evidence was low to very low for most of outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: LSSS significantly decreased SBP and DBP. There was no effect for detected hypertension, overall mortality and intermediate outcomes. Large, long-term RCTs are necessary to clarify salt substitute effects on clinical outcomes.