LTC Contacting Pack Patients Needing New Rxs

LTC patients with packs still require regular contact

Auditors need to see evidence that the service given to LTC patients exceeds that given to Core patients. LTC pack patients are no exception. One way to comply with the service protocol is to contact the patient when a new Rx is required – as a reminder for the patient and/or an opportunity to quickly review the medicines and check compliance factors with the patient.

Identification of patients requiring a new Rx.

Use patient bulk edit (9 – Other, 2 – Bulk edit patients). After setting up criteria the first time the report can be run regularly (weekly?) by selecting the report name and adjusting the dates.
Give the report a name : LTC pack patients review

• Set date range to cover last 3 months

If Pack patients are identified by a note, set this appropriately (e.g. "LTCPACK")

• F11 – Next page, Tick Has active dosepacks, set LTC as at date to today
• F11 – Next page, Tick No repeats available
• F12 – Accept details

Patients meeting the criteria are displayed, press F2 – Edit list (patient by patient). The function keys to View History, Dosepack, Open diary and Remove Item can be used to check/limit the list to those that need to be contacted.

Patients on the list can be actioned and records updated one by one from the screen, or the list can be printed (or saved as a contact list) and worked on over a number of days.

Updating the patient diary (medicine plan) after contacting the patient

The patient diary (accessible directly from the bulk edit list) will show the most recent medicines management plan – with agreed LTC service actions.

F2 – View/Edit diary item and update plan. There are two ways to approach this, either use the F5 Copy Note option to make a new identical diary item on the current date – and update that, or edit the plan and date any changes/notes in the plan so it becomes a running review document for Audit.

Example of how the Notes and Additional comments section of the updated medicine plan record in patient history might look like this.

NB: If the plan is copied to current date (F5 – Copy Note) and then updated, it is easily seen in the patient history (never being more than a month or so behind current date). If, as in this example the plan is NOT copied forward and is edited without copying forward, it slips out of the patient history grid as the year goes on – and is less easily viewed there. But it is arguably more easily viewed and accessed in the Diary list. It can still be copied forward at annual review time. Both approaches are valid, because in both cases a record of the most recent plan and actions taken can be viewed and printed should auditors require it.