Elsevier

Geriatric Nursing

Volume 44, March–April 2022, Pages 266-271
Geriatric Nursing

Featured Article
Post-acute long-term care COVID-19 medication optimization survey: Informing medication management initiatives

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gerinurse.2022.02.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Polypharmacy leading to multiple medication administrations in the PA-LTC setting is challenging and the Medication Management Guide provides guidance to address this.

  • The promise of reducing staff workload, improving patient outcomes, producing financial benefits, buy-in from front-line staff, and support from regulators, were the most important factors facilitating adoption of the MMG in PA-LTC facilities.

  • Deprescribing efforts were a major tactic utilized to implement aspects of the MMG.

  • Enduring and additional resources (e.g. webinars) are needed by LTC providers to continue to overcome medication management challenges.

Abstract

The Medication Management Guide (MMG) provides guidance on strategies to optimize medication management in PA-LTC and simplify administration to reduce the transmission risk of COVID-19. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the utility of the MMG, determine the barriers and facilitators of the MMG implementation in PALTC sites to help inform future research and initiatives. Individuals who accessed MMG during the pandemic (April 2020-March 2021) were contacted to elicit feedback on this tool via an online survey. The survey response rate was 7.7% (156/2,018) after three rounds of emails. Respondents consisted of 31% (n=49) pharmacists, 27% (n=42) physicians, 11% (n=18) nurses, and 12% (n=19) nurse practitioners. The “Other” respondents (11%, n=17) included dieticians (n=4), physician assistants (n=3), pharmacy technicians (n=3), students (n=1), consultants (n=1), and educators (n=2). From these respondents, 77% (n=122) took tactics to optimize medications at their facilities during COVID-19.

Keywords

Medication optimization
Pandemic
Implementation

Cited by (0)

View Abstract