Browsing by Subject "omahoito"

Current national medicines policy in Finland highlights the importance of rational use of medicines leading to effective, good quality, equal and safe medication therapy, in which the key is on well-implemented medication self-management. The aim of this study was to find out how well people with chronic diseases are in control with their own medication therapy. The special focus was on assessing whether people with chronic conditions: 1) are familiar with the therapeutic aim of their medication; 2) have medication lists of their medicines and are those lists up-to-date; and 3) utilize Omakanta-database. The aim was also: 4) to identify which factors are associated with the utilization of medication lists. A nationwide cross-sectional Internet survey was conducted among medicine users in Autumn 2017. The link for the survey was available via the Finnish Medicine Agency’s and Pharmaceutical Information Centre’s website. In addition, members of the national medicines information network forwarded the link through their own channels. Survey respondents with chronic diseases were included in this study (n=844). The majority of the people with chronic diseases (92 %) were aware about the therapeutic aims of their medication. Of the respondents, 39 % had a medication list. Availability of medication list was associated with the age of ≥ 65-years (OR 0.223; CI 0.103-0.485) and the use of multiple medicines (OR 0.218; IC 0.127-0.376). Of the medication lists used by people with chronic disease, 44 % were in the electronic form and the majority (92 %) of all the medication lists used by people with chronic disease were reported to be up-to-date. Omakanta-database was used by 93 % of the respondents. People with chronic disease are well aware of the therapeutic aims of their medication. However, the rarely have up-dated medication lists. Omakanta-database seems to be well known and utilized among people with chronic diseases. Older people using multiple medicines should be encouraged to use and supported with the up-date of their medication lists.

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.