SC House Calls Strives for Medication Adherence to Reduce Hospitalizations
Ask any Doctor or Nurse Practitioner who provides care for older adults, and they will tell you the number one reason patients get into trouble is through medication non-adherence. Taking multiple medications, each with different dosing requirements, is daunting for anyone and especially challenging for seniors. SC House Calls (SCHC) addresses this issue with each of their newly registered patients by performing a comprehensive pharmacy consult. With multiple pharmacists within its Center for Telehealth and a partnership with SC Home Rx, these consultations help identify Medications that can be reduced or eliminated while ensuring patients have a clear understanding of each drug, its purpose, and proper dosing requirements.
One example of how medication adherence reduces hospitalizations can be seen with an SCHC patient from Florence who suffers from multiple chronic conditions, including hypertension, diabetes, and congestive heart failure. Before becoming a patient, the individual had been admitted to the hospital three times within 90 days. The admissions could all be traced to medication non-adherence. By providing a pharmaceutical consultation, utilizing Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM), and installing a Livi intelligent dispensing system through SC Home Rx, SCHC stopped the patient's hospitalization revolving door. RPM daily monitoring of a patient's vitals allows practitioners to react quickly to changes, while the Livi system ensures proper medications and dosages are dispensed as prescribed.
When SCHC patients elect home delivery through SC Home Rx, they are set up for monthly automatic cycle refills, allowing patients to receive all their medications once a month at the same time. This system has also proven effective in improving medication adherence. The SCHC advantage of having on-staff pharmacists and their partnership with SC Home Rx provides medical professionals in the field an invaluable resource to quickly resolve patient medication-related questions and issues.
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