How Data Drives Comprehensive Medication Management
CMM is a team-based care solution that involves the patient working with a physician and other health providers, including a clinical pharmacist. This interprofessional team relies on the skills and expertise of each member to achieve optimized medication use. The team’s efforts are rooted in a robust, data-driven record of the patient’s health and medical history in combination with clinical and diagnostic findings. Many of today’s health IT systems don’t allow access to the necessary clinical data to comprehensively manage, monitor and evaluate a patient’s medication regimen. To move toward CMM, the healthcare industry must adopt, implement and enforce data sharing requirements in both the public and private sectors.
When technology-enabled clinical information (such as lab and diagnostic data that include pharmacogenetic test results, clinical notes and patient status) is available to the entire team at the point of care, health providers can fulfill important activities in the CMM process. This data helps teams identify patients who have not achieved the clinical goals of therapy — or who are experiencing medication therapy problems — and evaluate actual use patterns of all medications (including over-the-counter medicines, supplements, prescribed drugs and biologics). With complete clinical data access, patient care teams can assess each medication for safe, effective and appropriate use.
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Comprehensive Medication Management Improves Clinical Outcomes
With an overtaxed health system fighting COVID-19 nationwide, physician appointments, emergency room availability and hospital beds are in short supply. Data shows that improper medication therapy — misuse, underuse and overuse — can result in treatment failure, new medical problems or both. Annually, 275,000 avoidable deaths and health costs of approximately $528.4 billion are the result of nonoptimized medication use. Studies reveal that CMM reduces the drain on the healthcare system by improving clinical outcomes and reducing hospital readmission rates.
With CMM, health IT enables a process of care designed to identify, manage and resolve medication therapy problems for patients systematically as they move across the continuum of care. Participation in CMM services — designed to optimize medication use through identification and resolution of medication therapy problems — can be correlated with broader changes in health status or healthcare utilization patterns, thus demonstrating contribution and value to the nationwide healthcare system.