Pharmacists customise training programme for transplant patients
Pharmacists at the Royal Free Hospital in London are customising a new training programme for transplant patients in a bid to reduce long-term graft rejection.
The organ transplant information system (OTIS), supported by Roche Pharmaceuticals,
is a computer-based learning system with a database of information on
all aspects of transplantation, ranging from how to prepare for surgery
to
post-transplant medicines and how to take them.
Caroline Ashley, principal pharmacist in renal services at the Royal
Free, said that the beauty of the system is that it can be edited according
to a unit’s practices. If a team uses generic names for drugs then
they can incorporate those, along with relevant advice about how to take
medicines and what to do in the event of side effects or missed doses.
“If we can teach patients about their medicines and the problems
they might encounter in advance, and that there is something we can do
about
them, then hopefully patients will be more compliant and we will see
a drop in chronic rejection rates,” said Ms Ashley.
The information on OTIS is divided into short modules that patients can
work through while having dialysis, waiting for a clinic appointment
or at the bedside after a transplant. A quiz at the end of each module
checks what patients have learnt.
After transplant, individual patients’ medication details are stored
on the system together with any changes and the reasons for them.
“We can feed into the system and find out how patients have performed
on quizzes to identify gaps in their knowledge. This will help save us
time in the long term as we can focus on patients’ individual education
needs — and which we hope will improve compliance,” said
Ms Ashley. |
