How Your Pharmacist Can Help with Your Medication Management

Improper adherence to medication and poor medication management due to patient oversight can impact a patient’s condition. Based on the findings by the CDC, a good percentage of older patients (65 years or older) take more than five prescription drugs which are probably prescribed by multiple doctors.

This can make it hard to maintain proper adherence to taking medication. Thus, leading to issues like; disease complications, unnecessary medication changes, reduced quality of life, and increased medical costs. To avoid these oversight-related issues, experts recommend getting your pharmacist involved in your medication management.

What Exactly is Medication Management?

This is a process whereby your pharmacy and pharmacist oversee the medications prescribed for you by your doctor to ensure proper adherence and achieving a good therapeutic outcome/improved quality of life.

The Medication Management Process and the Role of Your Pharmacist

• Put a pharmacist in charge of your medication management: by putting a pharmacist in charge of your medication management, you can ensure that you are getting an in-depth education and advice from a well-qualified professional equipped with knowledge about your medication.
• Access to medication: apart from being qualified to give you information on your medication, your pharmacist can also ensure that you have access to that medication by evaluating your ability to pay for it or by helping you explore alternative medications or payment plans.
• Leveraging technology for better medication management- gone are the days when pharmacists are limited to writing patient information on labels and books. Thanks to technology, most pharmacies can now maintain a database of patient information and fill out prescriptions online.

This is also a benefit for you as a patient because, with your patient database, your pharmacist can identify and do a follow-up when you don’t properly adhere to taking and filling out your medications.

In order for patients to have quicker and easier access to their drugs, some pharmacies coordinate with patient doctors and automate patient prescriptions. Online pharmacies like Canada Drugs even have a login portal for their clients to easily refill their prescriptions from the comfort of their own homes.

• Ensure medication adherence: your pharmacist can also help you with taking your medication as it is prescribed. For example, by reviewing how you take each medication, they may suggest medication changes or dosage changes. Sometimes your pharmacist might even recommend additional therapies that can help improve your adherence to taking your medications.
• Brown-bag review: this is a way pharmacists actively help in providing effective healthcare. The brown-bag review is essentially a way for pharmacists to review medication history, especially for patients who take multiple medications. In this process, everything from prescription drugs to OTC drugs and supplements is tossed into a paper bag and taken to the pharmacist for a review. This should be done on a yearly basis.

Conclusion:

Proper medication management is crucial to improving health conditions and quality of life. This is why you should enlist the help of your pharmacist to conduct a comprehensive review of your full medication regimen to ensure their effectiveness and how well they work together. This will ensure that not only is your medication being managed properly, but it is also safe for you.