Improving the Safe Use of Medications by Patients with DiabetesAdverse drug events (ADEs) are prevalent, and some Americans are at particularly highrisk for suffering ADEs. Patient-specific factors including knowledge, attitudes,communication and lack of care coordination contribute to the unsafe use of evenappropriate and indicated medications. One recommended strategy is to educate andempower patients to be informed about their medications and to communicateeffectively with providers. This project is a unique collaboration to develop and pilot testa cost-effective, replicable and sustainable educational program to promote the safeuse of medications by at-risk patients.The project team will develop a 'train-the-trainer' module, utilizing one component of thevalidated DEEP program for diabetes education. In addition to discussing safemedication use, the training will be modified to include education on the use of patientsupport tools-a personal health record and a medication bag. The training program willbe pilot tested at a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC). Two health educatorswill be trained and each will subsequently educate 50 clinic patients with diabetes whotake 3 or more medications and see 2 or more healthcare providers. Patients will berecruited by flyers in the clinic and direct recruitment by clinic staff. At the time oftraining, staff will administer a blinded activation and knowledge survey to theparticipants. The health educator will use a registry tool to monitor when patients returnfor clinic visits and whether the support tools have been used. Only blinded, aggregateddata will be shared with the study team. We have assembled an Advisory Board madeup of federal, state and local stakeholders that interact with this community of patientsand the Board will be convened regularly to provide input and feedback on the project.We will evaluate the pilot test with process and outcome measures including thenumber of patients educated, the number of patients returning with their medicationbags and personal health records, and key informant interviews with clinic staff andproviders. Our final report will summarize the feasibility and sustainability of theintervention as well as our analysis of effectiveness. If funded for additional years, theeducational program will be refined based upon the pilot findings and expanded to otherFQHCs..
This project is a unique collaboration to develop and pilot test a cost-effective, replicable and sustainable educational program to promote the safe use of medications by at-risk patients. In addition to discussing safe medication use, the training will include education on the use of a personal health record and a medication bag. The training program will be pilot tested and evaluated with both process and outcome measures.
