gms | German Medical Science

Background: All health professionals are increasingly involved in the treatment of multimorbid elderly patients with high-risk polypharmacy that might contribute to iatrogenic frailty and implicate cognitive dysfunction as well as falls and fractures, meaning a considerable burden on the patient and the health care system.

Challenge and Method: The awareness of severe polypharmaceutical and gerontopharmacological risks obvious from >14,500 own medication analyzes of hospitalized patients are to be communicated across sectors to primary care providers as physicians, nursing professionals and pharmacists within the framework of interprofessional training workshops.

Predominant challenge is any, so far missing experience with interprofessional training in this constellation, in particular the feasibility in terms of conventional centuries-old hierarchical structures. In a Saxony Anhalt-wide project SAPREMO (Safe Aging: Prevention and Demography in Focus with Improvement of Polypharmacy in the Elderly), these interprofessional workshops are designed to be integrated in cooperation with the Medical Council, General Practitioners’ Association, Association of Statutory Health Insurance, nursing homes and outpatient care services and Pharmacists’ Chamber Saxony Anhalt. Drafting of a uniform anonymous questionnaire that specifically reflects the intention and content of these interprofessional training courses for evaluations.

Results: From 04/2016 to 10/2017, all planned 11 interprofessional training courses and workshops were performed in target group sizes of 6–10 participants per profession reaching the sought peripherally located regions. Moreover SAPREMO achieved the desired balanced number of participants (n total = 272) with: 100 physicians, 95 nursing professionals and 77 pharmacists; 44.1±11.2 years of aged, 84% female, professional years 18±11.2. The analyzes of the anonymous personal questionnaires as the basis for a internal control (IC) 1. Problem awareness regarding polypharmacy, 2. Personal sense of security/insecurity, 3. Willingness to cooperate, 4. Participation motives, 5. Own experiences and knowledge and 6. Expectations/criticism/suggestions confirm the homogenous enormous interest and are presented, as well as the results of logistic regressions.

Conclusion: The innovative integration of a cross-sectoral preventive postgraduate training project on an interprofessional workshop level to supply the demographically and within all health care systems foregrounded geriatric patients preventively and to promote a barrier-free, interprofessional networking proves to be a project of clear feasibility and great resonance. Within this vulnerable patient group, drug safety requires sensitization and better education and interprofessional engagement of all health professionals – ahead an inter-professional preventive know-how instead of interprofessional ironing out.

Acknowlegdements:

• The author declares that she has no competing interests.
• Vote of the Ethics Commission of the Medical Faculty of the MLU Halle-Wittenberg
• Project funding 01/2016–10/2017 by Robert Bosch Stiftung, Operation Team