Partnership in Resilience for Medication Safety

Preventable patient harms from medications are significant threats to patient safety in ambulatory and community settings and contributed 700,000 emergency department visits each year. More than a third of community-dwelling 65 years or older adults take 5 or more prescription medications. In ambulatory and community settings, more so than in inpatient settings, medication safety is shaped by interactions among patient/caregivers and different professionals across locations. We developed a set of patient partnership tools to encourage and empower patients to make use of their office visits through setting expectations of information sharing, learning basics of medication self-management, and working with community pharmacy resources. The trial will be conducted at private and safety-net primary care clinics to assess the impact of the partnership tools: 1) a one-page 'visit prep guide' given to relevant patients by clinic staff before seeing the provider, with the intention to improve communication and shared decision-making; and (2) a series of short educational videos that clinic staff can encourage patients to watch. A step-wedge design will be used, with medication use self-efficacy as the primary outcome, as measured by a validated tool. Secondary outcomes are issues identified by medication review.