Long Term Care Rx is more than just a dispensing pharmacy. We have a wide range of clinical programs available to help reduce hospital readmissions and improve overall patient care. The following are just a few of the clinical services we are able to provide with our in-house nursing and pharmacist consultants:
Transitions of Care:
Most residents that are admitted or readmitted to your facility have recently undergone a significant shift in their health. Why wait until your scheduled medication management review? Studies have shown that 19.6% hospital readmissions occur within 30 days and as many as 76% of those readmissions may be preventable. Within three business days, a licensed pharmacist will perform a remote, interim medication management review with all admissions with the goal to reduce or even eliminate these preventable errors. With this program, Long Term Care Rx will not only help improve patient outcomes, but will also improve your facility’s reputation and referral numbers with hospitals.
Disease State Management:
In addition to our transitions of care program, we also offer clinical monitoring programs with diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and congestive heart failure. Our pharmacy and nurse consultants will help educate your staff, from administration to the patient care staff, on what it takes to improve patient care on these three very important disease states. Our consultant pharmacists and nurses will help ensure that these residents are on the optimal therapies for their various medical conditions. Long Term Care Rx’s diabetes program has been proven to be effective and has even been featured as a poster presentation with the American Medical Directors Association!
Antibiotic Stewardship:
Research has indicated that up to 40-75% of antibiotics prescribed in nursing homes may be unnecessary or inappropriate. This could place your residents at risk of antibiotic resistant infections, drug interactions, and adverse drug events, including hard-to-treat Clostridium difficile infections. Let our consulting team help educate your staff to ensure appropriate antibiotic use in your facility.
We are always working to stay ahead of the curve and to develop new programs to improve patient care, reduce costs, and to reduce hospital readmissions. For more information on how Long Term Care Rx can help you, call to schedule an appointment today!
Consultant Pharmacists
Long Term Care Rx consultant pharmacists visit each facility and review each resident's medication regimen on a regular schedule throughout the year. Consultant pharmacists provide assistance in each facility by reviewing charts and making clinical recommendations to better serve the patients. Consultant pharmacists ensure their patients' medications are appropriate, effective, as safe as possible, and used correctly. They also identify, resolve and prevent medication-related problems that may interfere with the goals of therapy.
Long Term Care Rx consultant pharmacists provide expert advice and engage with staff and residents to maximize medication therapy. Not only do our consultant pharmacists provide mandated medication regimen reviews for your residents on a regular schedule throughout the year, but we also use our clinical skills to impact care in the following areas:
- Transitions of Care
- Readmission Reduction
- Psychoactive Medication Usage
- Dementia Care
- Congestive Heart Failure
- Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
- Pneumonia
- Diabetes
Through our published work on diabetes care, we have shown that our consultant services have a substantial impact on both health and economic factors for a facility and that is just one arena. Long Term Care Rx consultant pharmacists initiated a 'Readmission Reduction Program' in 2013 looking at the common causes for rehospitalization and working with the facility to reduce these problems. Often times when a patient moves from a hospital setting to a long term care facility, medications can get lost in the process. Our consultant pharmacists review all orders to make sure medication is continued and effective. We have identified several other factors that hospitals look for when discharging a patient to a long term care facility. Long Term Care Rx has created a info packet to help market your facility to area hospitals and as an added bonus, a Long Term Care Rx staff member will accompany the facility's staff to explain our joint effort in depth to area hospitals allowing your facility's census to grow.
Long Term Care Rx consultant pharmacists want to help you and your facility improve your quality measures, raises your CMS star ratings, reduce cost and provide the highest level of care to your residents.
Consultant Nurses
Long Term Care Rx has consultant nurses on staff. Consultant nurses are available to assist with med room reviews, inspections, and med pass documentation at no cost to the facility. In addition, they can be contracted to perform other nursing duties including recapping, nursing duty in-service, med pass observations, or work flow/operation procedures. These services free up time for your facilities' nurses to give each resident the attention they need and deserve.
Some of the services provided:
- Medication Pass Observation
- Recapping training and education
- Psychotropic medication/Behavior Monitoring audit
- Individual & Group In-servicing
- Medication Room and Medication Cart Inspection
- Resident Charts Audits (i.e. lab compliance, medication compliance, proper orders, etc.)
- Policy Review and Creation
- Level 1 Medication Aide Instructor
- Insulin Instructor
- Infection Control Review and Teaching
- Review of Facility systems for State and Federal compliance
- Individualized services to meet the needs of your facility and residents
- Mock State Inspections.