Pharmacists Ensuring Patient Safety

An article in this week's North Carolina News and Observer tells the story of "Senior PharmAssist," an agency that has been working for 15 years to help low-income seniors "take the right prescription drugs, in the right amounts at the right times." In addition, the non-profit works to educate their clients about dangerous combinations of drugs or interactions between their prescriptions and foods or medical conditions.

In her INQRI study, "Nursing-Pharmacy Collaboration on Medication Reconciliation: A Novel Approach to Information Management," Linda Costa found that local pharmacists are powerful partners to health care teams trying to ensure that patients continue taking the correct prescriptions in safe ways once they have returned home from the hospital.

This summer, Costa presented her work at two meetings held at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. First, she participated in an INQRI panel at the Health Funders Forum, co-sponsored by the INQRI program and the Donaghue Foundation. Click here to see her slides from the Funders Forum presentation.

Most recently, she and her co-investigator Bob Feroli presented at the INQRI annual meeting. Click here to view their presentation via YouTube.