: The objective of the PeaceHealth """"""""Medication Management at Home: Patient Identified Processes and Risk Assessment"""""""" study is to assess the risks associated with ambulatory care medication management from the patient perspective. This study is consistent with the PeaceHealth mission of promoting personal and community health through the delivery of patient-centered healing and compassionate care. Few studies have investigated important risks that might impact medication safety related to the patient's process of managing medications. A Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) will be used to identify the most serious risk factors associated with the processes that patients' identify from the time they fill prescriptions, as well as during the time they are taking the medications until the next healthcare delivery encounter.
The specific aims will help determine: 1) What is the process by which patients manage medications (is there one common process or many different processes)?; 2) What are the common failure modes associated with the patient process for managing medications, and which failure modes have the greatest negative impact on patient safety from the patients' perspective?; and 3) Based on these risk assessment findings, what are the most viable opportunities for reducing patient medication management behavior risks that should be further explored by health systems? This is an exploratory study intended to describe the methods used by patients to manage their medications at home, and to have patients evaluate the risks of those methods with Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA). The design is qualitative in nature. Patients between the ages of 50 and 75 who have a chronic condition and have taken a prescribed medication for that condition during the past three months will be recruited from among the patient population served by the PeaceHealth Medical Group (PHMG). PHMG includes seven medical clinics with a total of 170 primary care and multi-specialty physicians, serving about 80,000 patients annually. Face to face interviews and focus groups will be used to collect the data needed for the analysis. The study findings will benefit public health by enhancing provider and patient understanding of medication management risks encountered outside the traditional healthcare setting, thereby reducing medication errors and involving the patient in the management of their health, specifically with regard to managing their own medications. ? ? ?
