Treatment Considerations and the Role of the Clinical Pharmacist Throughout Transitions of Care for Patients With Acute Heart Failure

Abstract

Heart failure is associated with increased risk of morbidity and mortality, resulting in substantial health-care costs. Clinical pharmacists have an opportunity to reduce health-care costs and improve disease management as patients transition from inpatient to outpatient care by leading interventions to develop patient care plans, educate patients and clinicians, prevent adverse drug reactions, reconcile medications, monitor drug levels, and improve medication access and adherence. Through these methods, clinical pharmacists are able to reduce rates of hospitalization, readmission, and mortality. In addition, care by clinical pharmacists can improve dosing levels and adherence to guideline-directed therapies. A greater benefit in patient management occurs when clinical pharmacists collaborate with other members of the health-care team, emphasizing the importance of heart failure treatment by a multidisciplinary health-care team. Education is a key area in which clinical pharmacists can improve care of patients with heart failure and should not be limited to patients. Clinical pharmacists should provide education to all members of the health-care team and introduce them to new therapies that may further improve the management of heart failure. The objective of this review is to detail the numerous opportunities that clinical pharmacists have to improve the management of heart failure and reduce health-care costs as part of a multidisciplinary health-care team.

Post-Hospital Discharge Care: A Retrospective Cohort Study Exploring the Value of Pharmacist-Enhanced Care and Describing Medication-Related Problems

“…Furthermore, most of these studies have utilized pharmacy services for specific high-risk populations versus all discharged patients [19,20,22,23,35,37]. This study adds to the existing but limited body of literature emphasizing a reduction in readmissions, albeit non-significant, following face-to-face pharmacist hospital follow-up visits with a multidisciplinary team in a patient-centered medical home.…”

The role of pharmacists in the renal multidisciplinary team at a tertiary hospital in South Africa: Strategies to increase participation of pharmacists

“…It is encouraging to note that although pharmacists are absent in the wards, the participants of the study believe that pharmacists can play a role in the management of renal patients. The inclusion of a pharmacist in the renal MDT can improve renal patients’ state of health and reduce drug-related problems (McNeely 2017 ; Salgado et al 2014 ). Accordingly, participants indicated that pharmacists can review patients’ medication, work with prescribers during the prescribing stage, prevent the use of contraindicated drugs and to oversee dosage adjustments.…”

Strengthening Medication Adherence Practices in Chronic Disease Patients-clinical Pharmacist Driven Focused Approach

“…Medication adherence practices are well promoted with focused group discussions. [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] Confidentiality and privacy should be maintained at all times during focused group discussions. Discussion between patients observed to be very fruitful.…”

“…Physical verification of tablets/capsules in presence of healthcare professionals will certainly improve the understanding of the patient. [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38]…”