Building an Effective Medication Management Service for the Older Adults in Hong Kong

Abstract

The chapter delineates the practices, significance, and challenges in developing a safe medication management service for institutionalised and community-dwelling older adults. According to the United Nations, one in six people in the world will be aged over 65 by 2050. While a substantial proportion of the older adults live in the community, they are facing many medication-related problems including polypharmacy, non-compliance, failure to understand dosage instructions, and poor general medication knowledge. The traditional and manual medication handling process in Residential Care Homes for the Elderly (RCHEs) is also tedious, labour-intensive, and error-prone. The Hong Kong Pharmaceutical Care Foundation (HKPCF), a charitable organisation, has developed a system for medication management in RCHEs. Through the utilisation of information and communication technologies (ICT), a safer medication management plan can be developed. This chapter introduces two ICT-enabled medication management service models for the older adults living in both elderly homes and in the community, respectively. For elderly homes, the model focuses on the integration of an ICT-enabled drug dispensing process with the Automated Tablet Dispensing & Packaging System (ATDPS) and the Visiting Pharmacist Service (VPS) to achieve a more efficient and accurate workflow. For community-dwelling older adults, the model seeks to enable safe in-home drug administration by patients through the provision of a medication review and reconciliation service by pharmacists, medication repackaging into multi-dose pouches using ATDPS, and technology-assisted drug medication administration and monitoring using mobile apps. The chapter concludes with practical suggestions for the development of a sustainable ICT-enabled medication management service for the older adults to improve medication adherence to better control chronic diseases and related hospitalisations, and reduce the pressure on caretakers.