News

Four Seasons tests virtual pharmacist care

By Lightning Reports, Published: November 9, 2019

Four Seasons, a nationally recognized innovator in hospice and palliative care, has been awarded a two-year telehealth grant from the Agency of Healthcare Research and Quality.

The grant will enable Four Seasons to evaluate the impact on patients and providers of integrating a virtual pharmacist into a telehealth model when caring for people with serious illness in rural western North Carolina.

This study will build on a pilot project previously implemented at Four Seasons as part of a Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Health Care Innovation award. The new platform, called ADAPT Health, is powered by the TapCloud application and is offered by DeltaCare Rx, a pharmacy benefit provider that works with hospice and palliative care providers, with a long-standing relationship with Four Seasons. ADAPT Health will have the ability to interface with the electronic medical record, allowing for inter-collaborative practice in which the pharmacist will identify drug-to-drug interactions, recommend appropriate deprescribing, educate on the risks/benefits of new medications, and track side effects from new medications.
Clinicians will review pharmacy recommendations and will use e-prescribing as indicated for any medication changes. Patient and caregiver education will occur through virtual pharmacy sessions via ADAPT Health’s video and messaging capabilities. Patient’s will “tap in” their symptoms daily using the remote patient monitoring module and this information will be monitored by both the pharmacist and the clinicians, which is especially important after medication changes. All patient health information remains secure and encrypted within the application. The use of telehealth in hospice and palliative medicine allows patients and care teams to better communicate about healthcare concerns and needs and improves response times to patient needs especially in rural areas with little access to healthcare options. The addition of a pharmacist to this care team is unique and one that has the potential to significantly affect care in a seriously ill population.
“Pharmacists add tremendous value in identifying harmful medication interactions and providing education to both clinician and patients,” said Janet Bull, the principal investigator on the project. “Using virtual technology within a remote patient monitoring application can easily be scaled to those with serious illnesses who are too sick to leave their home settings.”
To learn more about Four Seasons grant involvement or to gain access to care for yourself or a loved one, visit www.fourseasonscfl.org or call (866) 466.9734.