Browsing by Subject "elderly"

The amount of informal caregiving has increased in Finland, with a growing emphasis on the older adults. Although the medication management process in informal caregiving has been studied and is known to have significant risks, research data focusing on the older adults is still limited. The aim of this study was to describe the medication management process of informal carers and care recipients of at least 65 years old. The aim was to identify medication errors and medication risks in the medication management process and to find out how the caregivers manage them. In addition, the study examined the informal carers and care recipients own development proposals to improve medication management process. A total of 21 volunteer informal carers and care recipients living in the Helsinki metropolitan area were recruited to this study. The study was conducted as a qualitative interview survey in the homes of the participants. The interviews were a combination of semi-structured interviews and narrative approach. The material to this study was collected during spring and summer 2018. The study was analysed with abductive content analysis combining both deductive and inductive approach. The aim was to find repetitive elements by encoding and grouping expressions. The results of this study were compared with previous theory and the results were supplemented with a picture of the medication management process and a fishbone diagram was drawn from the risk factors and contributing factors of the medication management process. The families had medication errors in all stages of the medication management process. The most frequent medication errors were found in counselling, medication administration and in medication treatment monitoring. As a contributing factor, the healthcare professionals’ haste and the responsibility of the caregiver recurred in the background of the medication errors. Family caregivers and care recipients wish to have more counselling, more monitoring of medication and better interaction with health care. Carers often felt left alone to take care of another person's medications and felt they lack support from healthcare. By facilitating access to a physician, improving the availability of a physician, increasing the amount of counseling and support provided by healthcare, including pharmacies, could the safety of medication management at home be improved.

As the population becomes older and the amount of multimorbid patients increases, also health care spending increases. New care models are needed where patients’ needs are taken into consideration by providing preventive and patient-centred care. In Finland and internationally, new ways to treat elderly, chronically ill patients have been developed. One of the new models is the health and care plan model. This longitudinal, randomised, controlled trial studied the health and care plan model’s impact on healthcare costs, patients’ physical functioning and patients’ quality of life. The aim of the study was to study the cost-effectiveness of the health and care plan model compared to standard care practice. The goal of this study was to study if rational pharmacotherapy and self-management support can prevent the decline in physical functioning, the decline in quality of life and the increase in health service use and costs among elderly population. This study was conducted between 2014-2018 as a multi-disciplinary cooperation between Tornio health station, University of Helsinki Faculty of Pharmacy and Alatornio pharmacy. The patients in this study were over 75-year old, multimorbid, community dwelling, polypharmacy patients. The patients in the intervention group received an interview based clinical medication review and were formed a medication plan. Furthermore, the patients in the intervention group were planned a health and care plan that was combined with the medication plan into a comprehensive self-management plan in a multi-disciplinary meeting. A case manager was appointed for the patients in the intervention group and the case manager could be contacted by the patients in the intervention group at any point of the study if there arose a non-acute concern with the patient’s health. The patients in the control group were conducted a prescription review based on the information available in the electronic health records system and continued receiving the standard care practice. Cost and effectiveness data were gathered from the patients over the period of two years. The effectiveness data were gathered at Tornio health station where the intervention and control group’s quality of life was measured with the SF-36 generic quality of life measure and physical functioning was measured with Short Physical Performance Battery (SPPB). The quality of life data gathered with SF-36 were transformed into one preference based single index score SF-6D to calculate the quality of life and quality adjusted life years (QALY). Data about the use of health services were extracted from the electronic health records system and transformed into costs by using the national reference costs. At the beginning of the study, the intervention and control group were statistically significantly similar. During the two-year follow-up, no statistically or clinically significant differences were observed between the intervention and control group in their quality of life, in their physical functioning or in the costs of used health services. However, in the intervention group, the cost of used health services was on average 2 406 euros smaller than those of the control group’s during the two-year follow-up. The health and care plan model was cost-effective compared to standard care practice. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was -64 504 € per one QALY. Based on this study, it is recommended to support the self-management and physical functioning of the elderly with an intervention like health and care plan model to decrease the health care spending. The results of this study can be applied to Finnish healthcare system to decrease the health care spending of multimorbid, community dwelling and polypharmacy elderly patients. The use of real-world evidence increases the reliability of this study.