Pharmacist-led discharge counseling and its effects on patient drug knowledge, compliance, and satisfaction

Transitions of care are currently a major area of focus for hospitals across the country, as healthcare providers are recognizing that the current system leaves much to be desired and patient satisfaction scores regarding communication of medications continue to be an improvement opportunity. For hospitals, the focus for streamlining and improving transitions of care centers on the discharge process. Discharge is also the time at which patients are most receptive to health care recommendations, which places even further emphasis on maximizing the impact of patient education. A new focus and emphasis towards increasing the quality of counseling and patient satisfaction, as well as improving medication adherence, is warranted. This quality improvement project examines whether a pharmacist-led discharge counseling program could improve patient satisfaction scores, self-reported patient compliance rates, and the patient’s knowledge of the medications they are taking upon discharge. \ud Public Health Significance: The study assesses the quality of medication discharge counseling in the general medicine patient population, excluding patients who are younger than 18 years of age, who have conditions that would present significant challenges to understanding counseling, or who are discharged to outside facilities. Upon initiation of the assessment period, nurses continued to provide discharge counseling as they had been. After two weeks, pharmacists provided the counseling to these patients at time of discharge for a similar two-week time frame. The counselors documented how long they spent counseling and captured medication lists and contact information so that patients could be reached by telephone for a follow-up survey. The survey was conducted two weeks post-discharge and assessed each patient’s compliance with and knowledge of their prescribed discharge medications, as well as their satisfaction with their discharge counseling session.\u