Share
Guest Post: Research Participation Opportunity for Community Pharmacists in Lower Mainland
Adverse drug events, the unintended and harmful outcomes of medication use, are a leading cause of emergency department visits and hospital admissions. Approximately 30% are repeat events, meaning the patient was re-exposed to a medication that previously caused harm. Gaps in communication between acute and community-based care providers exacerbate this problem.
ActionADE is a software application that seeks to close this gap and prevent the re-dispensation of medications that previously caused harm. ActionADE allows care providers in hospitals in the Lower Mainland to document and communicate patient-specific information about adverse drug events to the community via PharmaNet.
Through PharmaNet linkage, information entered in ActionADE in hospital produces patient-specific alerts when community pharmacists attempt to re-dispense culprit medications. These are not the same as generic alerts – they are based on the patient’s medical history.
We want to ensure that community pharmacists receive the right adverse drug event alert at the right time. We want to hear your opinions about how the alerts look, if they are easy to understand, and what you would do when presented with certain types of alerts.
Participating in this research study would consist of a focus group held on Zoom with other community pharmacists, which would take about an hour of your time. To thank you for participating, we will give you a $50 gift card at the conclusion of the session.
Our project is funded and supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the BC Ministry of Health, Vancouver Coastal Health, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, Connected Displays Inc., and the College of Pharmacists of BC.
If you are a community pharmacist working in the Lower Mainland and are interested in participating in this study, please contact our research coordinator, Serena Small, by telephone (778-238-0152) or email ([email protected]). To learn more about our research on adverse drug events, visit our website www.actionade.org.
About ActionADE
Led by Drs. Corinne Hohl and Ellen Balka, ActionADE is clinician and researcher driven software that will improve informational continuity of care about adverse drug events. Our interdisciplinary team is based out of the Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation at Vancouver General Hospital. Researchers on our team are affiliated with the University of British Columbia and Simon Fraser University.