Impact of Pharmacist Post-discharge Phone Calls on Hospital Readmission and Patient Medication Literacy and Adherence
Stopped early · Not applicable
Conditions studied: Medication Adherence & Literacy to Predict Readmission, Post-discharge Pharmacist Counseling to Prevent Readmissions
In brief
A significant portion of avoidable healthcare expenditures has been attributed to preventable hospital readmissions; thus, reducing hospital readmission rates has become a national healthcare agenda item. Despite much study of this topic, efforts to date have not been especially fruitful in either predicting which patients will require hospital readmission. Preventing readmissions has been even more difficult. We recently examined a pharmacist intervention that assessed patients' medication literacy and adherence at hospital admission. In this retrospective data, low medication adherence levels were predictive of hospital readmission. There was a non-significant trend between low medication literacy and increased hospital readmissions. We have now decided to prospectively study this intervention. Prospective study will allow for several improvements on our prior work. 1. We have consulted the literature to more carefully examine existing instruments to measure medication adherence and literacy. Based on this review, and based on our prior results, we have made adjustments to these instruments which should improve reliability, validity, and granularity. 2. In our retrospective work, our intervention of pharmacist counseling was not randomized. Although there were large differences in readmission rates between the patients selected to receive counseling and those who were not thought to require it, there may have been unmeasured confounding variables. Randomizing this intervention will greatly enhance the likelihood that we are comparing two similar groups of patients.
Key facts
- Study ID
- NCT02031406
- Run by
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
- People needed
- 155
- Starts
- 2014-01-01
- Expected to finish
- 2014-07-01
- Last updated by the study team
- 2018-01-25
Who can join
Age: 18 and older. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.
You may qualify if…
- ≥10 chronic prescription medications On anticoagulants Diagnosis of CHF, AMI On narrow therapeutic index drugs E.g. valproic acid, phenytoin, lithium, digoxin History of transplant AND not admitted by transplant team
You may not qualify if…
- Trauma patients Pediatric patients History of transplant and admitted to the transplant team Patients admitted from or discharged to a SNF or hospice Non-English speaking patients
Where it is running
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center — Los Angeles, California, United States
Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov
Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.