SERVICES
Home Medication Review (HMR)
At Outback Pharmacies we have 2 fully accredited pharmacists that can perform Home Medication Reviews.
What is a HMR?
A home medication review is the assessment of a person’s medications and lifestyle factors.
The objective of a home medication review is to:
- Achieve safe, effective, and appropriate use of medicines by detecting and addressing medicine-related problems that interfere with desired patient outcomes
- Improve the patient's quality of life and health outcomes using a best practice approach, that involves cooperation between the general practitioner, pharmacist, other relevant health professionals and the patient (and where appropriate, their carer)
- Improve the patient's, and health professional’s knowledge and understanding about medicines • Facilitate cooperative working relationships between members of the health care team in the interests of patient health and wellbeing.
Who conducts a HMR?
The general practitioner will refer the individual to their preferred community pharmacy, to complete the pharmacy component of the HMR service. The community pharmacist’s responsibilities will vary depending on whether they are accredited to conduct medicine reviews.
If there is no access to an accredited pharmacist in a time frame suitable to the individual, the community pharmacist may conduct the interview and give the information to an accredited pharmacist who will complete the clinical assessment and write the report.
Patient Eligibility
A general practitioner must assess that a review of a patient living at home is clinically necessary to ensure the quality use of medicines or to address a patient’s needs. Examples of risk factors include patients:
- Currently taking five or more regular medicines
- Taking more than 12 doses of medicine per day
- With significant changes to their medicine regimen in the last three months, including recent discharge from hospital
- Taking medicine with a narrow therapeutic index or required therapeutic monitoring
- With symptoms suggestive of an adverse drug reaction
- Having difficulty managing their own medicines because of literacy or language difficulties, impaired sight • Attending a number of different doctors, both general practitioners and specialists
Confidentiality
All information is confidential. The information from the individual's record can only be given to the pharmacist conducting the review, with the patient’s consent. Input from each person involved in the review process is documented in the review report, as well as the recommendations and management plan.
The general practitioner will hold a copy and the consumer’s pharmacy will keep a full record for auditing purposes.
