Home pharmaceutical care for frailty patients in Gipuzkoa

Introduction: Home health care is one of the strategies promoted by administrations for patients with multiple pathologies, who live at home and who, due to their degree of disability or vulnerability, cannot go to health centers. This study consists of piloting home pharmaceutical care (HFC) by offering individualized responses to patients at home, within the multidisciplinary team for the care of frailty patients of the Hurkoa Foundation.

Material and methods: All pharmacies in the municipalities of Irún and Azkoitia were summoned to a training session. Patients included in the Hurkoa Foundation’s Comprehensive Fragility Care Plan who required help with medication management and agreed to include a pharmacist in the multidisciplinary care team, selected their community pharmacy. Pharmacists at these pharmacies conducted a review of the medicine cabinet (brown bag) along with the medication review.

Results: In the review of the medicine cabinet (brown bag), expired or unused medications were detected and between 2 and 3 medications were withdrawn from all patients. In the review of the medication, they detected at least one “PRM” in all the patients in the study. In the satisfaction evaluation, 100% of the patients reported a high degree of satisfaction with the program.

Discussion: The present study reinforces the importance of including the community pharmacist in the HFC multidisciplinary team, offering individualized responses to each patient, improving the management of their medication and thus achieving significant improvements in quality of life.