The aim of the project is to evaluate the effectiveness of a pharmacy technician using a medication assessment tool in care homes (CHAT-MO) to support pharmacist led medication reviews for care home residents.
Bedfordshire CCG have an established care home pharmacy team with an innovative system of working, the technicians actively support the pharmacists with their reviews by visiting the care home to focus mainly on medicines management issues.
This tool is designed to capture these interventions and in addition provide resident specific information on compliance that may aid pharmacists during their reviews. Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are experts in medicines and their perception on pharmaceutical care may differ from the care home manager's who traditionally are the main source for pharmacists for information on residents.
The main objectives include:
It is an observational perspective study on the impact the pharmacy technician has on medication reviews through use of the CHAT-MO (analysis of interventions and associated outcomes).
We are assessing the effectiveness and feasibility of the CHAT-MO (operational time and cost)
We are investigating client's satisfaction with the CHAT-MO compared with existing model of care (pharmacist, pharmacy technician, care home manager, resident perspective).
We are establishing the current perception of the role of the technician in care homes (heads of medicines management, pharmacist, technician)
We have to date created and validated the tool following an extensive pilot period and are due to go live on Monday 22nd July for full implementation and data collection.
We have received positive feedback from the care home managers, residents and care home pharmacy team that the tool is helping with promoting the service as well as optimising medicines for residents and providing a medicines optimisation mental checklist for technicians new in post providing the service of observing medication rounds.
