Partner with Patients

Medication Review - Are You Due?

Our program to Partner with Patients allows for additional checks for safety where we engage patients and caregivers to maximize the benefits of medicines, while minimizing untoward reactions and reducing costs.

We will:

  • review and manage any real or potential drug to drug interactions
  • assess opportunities for deprescribing (or reducing the number of meds you are on)
  • check for drug interactions with your vitamins, herbal products, and other non-prescription products you might be taking (from allergy pills to melatonin to cigarette smoking to recreational drug use)
  • explore instances where your medicines might work against you (some meds for heart can worsen asthma/COPD, some decongestants/antihistamines can worsen bladder problems)
  • address reasons behind any difficulties in adhering to medicine regimens, and provide solutions

Our Goal in Partnering With Patients

  • to empower individuals and caregivers with the knowledge needed to improve medication safety and ultimately keep people healthier, out of hospital and out of long term care, and maintain individual independence for as long as possible
  • to reduce the number of hospitalizations, adverse events, and deaths attributed to unsafe medication practices across Canada
  • to make everyone's pharmacist more accessible, so when access to health systems and other providers is difficult, your pharmacist can be counted on to be a great source of information, referral, and initial point of access

Positive Results

  • woman in her 60's on 1 med - our medication review identified patient hurdles, prompting a discussion of other options for her antidepressant which her doctor agreed to, resulting in a savings of $83 every 3 months; 2 years later, patient is doing well on her antidepressant with no side effects and can start to look at dose reductions
  • man in his 40's on multiple heart meds - our medication review identified an interaction between his non-prescription sleep aid and his blood thinner; recommendations to use sleep hygiene and offer a different sleep aid allowed proper metabolism of his blood thinner, thus reducing his risk for heart attack and stroke
  • elderly man in a seniors' complex - our medication review identified a potentailly problematic interaction between his cancer medication filled elsewhere and his stomach pill; this issue was brought to the prescribing doctor's attention, his stomach pill was changed to a safer option, allowing full benefit of anti-cancer drug; patient will be assesed in increments to address 1) if the new med is providing symptom relief and 2) to monitor if long term use of this med is necessary for this patient (deprescribing)
  • woman in her 80's having trouble with consistently high blood pressure - our medication review revealed patient was taking an ineffective medicine for her arthritis that may be contributing to elevated blood pressure readings and might also increase her risk for heart attack; following our recommendation, patient has started a new medication for pain and we will follow up to 1) review blood pressure readings and 2) assess pain control