Medicines Support Info’ – A ‘How-to’ Guide
A resource for Sheffield Community Pharmacies
Background
Patients discharged from hospital on new prescription medicines or altered regimens are at increased risk of being readmitted. Around four to five per cent of hospital admissions are due to preventable problems with medicines many of which can be overcome through improved communication to pharmacies when a patient is discharged. Similarly for patients being managed by pharmacists or technicians in Community Services.
From June both Sheffield Teaching Hospital and Community Services will use PharmOutcomes to communicate with the patient’s regular pharmacy. This how-to guide is intended to illustrate how this will work.
- Log in to PharmOutcomes – this should be a daily routine – then click on the ‘Services’ tab. This will display ‘Outstanding Referrals’ (new information or information not yet acted upon) as well as ‘Recent Provisions’. Click on any of the ‘Outstanding Referrals’ to see the referral information (next page).
The ‘Recent Provisions’ section will show information that the pharmacy has seen and actioned.
- Referral Information
- Accepting Referrals
Referrals can be Completed now, Accepted (to be completed later) or Rejected.
- Completed now – This will take you to the PharmOutcomes page where there is an option to record any actions taken by the pharmacy
- Accepted – This option keeps the referral ‘live’ but does not take you to the PharmOutcomes page
- Reject referral – There may be a number of reasons why the referral may be rejected. E.g. wrong pharmacy, patient deceased, not contactable, etc. Simply enter the reason in the box and click ‘Reject referral’.
- Recording Interventions
It is good practice to routinely record clinical interventions. There is an option within PharmOutcomes to record details of your input with the patient. Alternatively you may wish to make the record within the patient’s PMR. Simply choose between the two options.
- Recording Interventions in PharmOutcomes
If you have chosen to use PharmOutcomes to record interventions a new series of questions will open up. You can enter as much or as little information as appropriate.
- Reconciliation
There may be occasions where there has been a problem or error with the prescribed medicines. This can be noted here:
- Impact of Intervention
Finally, before you save the activity you may wish to record the impact of your intervention. E.g. for audit purposes. There is a facility to do this:
- Finally Click ‘Save’
Saved activities can be viewed under Recent Provisions. There is also an option to print or save the provision as a pdf document.