CHANGES to the way hospital discharge medications are funded and the quantities supplied could help minimise the financial and environmental impacts of medicines wastage, researchers from Monash University and Austin Health believe.
In a paper published in the Australasian Journal on Ageing, the authors noted that patients who have been discharged to residential care facilities (RCFs) generally received medications in quantities "consistent with manufacturer pack sizes (typically 28 to 30 days for long-term medications)".
However, they found that RCFs tended to use hospital supplied medicines for one to three days post-discharge, preferring to use community pharmacy-packed dose administration aids (DAAs).
A total of 52 RCFs caring for 73 recently discharged patients, were involved in the study, with all reporting that unused hospital-supplied medicines were sent to their community pharmacy once DAAs were supplied.
The authors found that nine pharmacies that catered for 80% of the patients, with three stores reported that they "usually or sometimes reused hospital-supplied medicines when packing patients' DAAs", while six other pharmacies said they did not reuse medications supplied by hospitals, with the exception of difficult to source medications.
The authors suggested that the solution to overcome this problem is for all hospitals to provide a small supply of medications, along with an interim medication administration chart, to cover the transition period.
"Dispensing small quantities like this, for patients who are typically on multiple medicines, has financial and resource implications for already stretched hospital pharmacies, as it requires additional resources for the labour-intensive process ," they said.
"We propose that the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme should fund hospitals to provide a three- to seven-day supply of medications to cover this high-risk transition period, to ensure vulnerable patients don't miss out on medications and hospitals are able to resource this important process."
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