Home Medicines Review Program

Medication-related problems cause many hospital admissions and deaths in Australia each year. The Home Medicines Review (HMR) program aims to reduce, if not prevent, medication-related problems experienced by people living at home.

Patients may be at risk of medication-related problems due to co-morbidities, age, social circumstance, characteristics of their medicines, complexity of their medication treatment regime, confusion or lack of knowledge and skills about how to use medicine effectively.

A HMR is a collaborative effort between a General Practitioner, a pharmacist and a patient. The HMR is undertaken by a pharmacist in the patient’s home under direction of the patient’s GP. The pharmacist collects and reviews information about all prescribed, ‘over the counter’ and complementary medicines the patient takes. This information is reported back to the GP who, in a second consultation, discusses the outcomes of the review with the patient and develops a written medication management plan thereby ensuring medication is optimal and fully understood.

Activities/Achievements

Practice visits

The HMR Facilitator is available to visit Illawarra GPs in their surgery to discuss any aspect of the HMR process including initiating a HMR referral, and locating pharmacists with the post-graduate qualifications needed to conduct HMR. The facilitator can demonstrate time saving ideas for the HMR process (using medical software or involving your practice staff).

Education and Training

Several collaborative HMR case study workshops have been conducted with general practitioners and their local community pharmacists. The workshops give participants the opportunity to learn about the process and benefits of HMR whilst reviewing treatment of a specific condition, and dealing with issues that may arise in practice such as communication between GPs and pharmacists.

Training of pharmacists to become accredited to conduct HMR is supported by:

report writing/interview skills workshops;
mentoring by an experienced HMR accredited pharmacist;
financial support to attend HMR accreditation workshops; and
quarterly HMR Update newsletter.

Community education

Raising community awareness about the importance of using medication correctly and safely, and the availability of the HMR service to assist them to do so, is a priority of the HMR Facilitator. Strategies to educate the community have included:

printing and distribution of HMR information brochures in seven community languages other than English;
‘Make it a General Practice’ television advertisement;
introductory letters and distribution of HMR brochures to local home nursing and meals on wheels organisations;
involvement in Seniors Week; and
presentations to community groups.