MMC: Services
The center provides the following services.
To reduce healthcare costs:
- Assist patients in formulary conversions. This includes talking with the patient regarding previous therapy to assess if a formulary conversion is clinically appropriate, and, if appropriate, choosing the correct dosing schedule for the new medication. In addition, pharmacists at the MMC are experts in understanding formularies and are available to answer questions regarding medications’ formulary status.
- Perform comprehensive medication reviews to look for unnecessary and duplicate therapy. If these are noticed, the pharmacist communicates this to the prescribing practitioner in order to discontinue unneeded medications.
- Decrease expenditures on morbidity and mortality from drug-related problems by better managing disease states and properly identifying drug-related problems.
- When clinically appropriate, work directly with patients and prescribing practitioners to titrate medications to maximum doses before adding on new medications in order to minimize the number of medications each patient takes.
To increase healthcare quality:
- Utilize evidence-based treatment guidelines to ensure patients are receiving the correct medications for their disease state.
- Provide disease state management by educating patients about their disease, educating patients about preventative measures to slow the progression of their disease and/or avoid complications from their disease, and evaluate treatment based on lab results or test results such as fasting blood glucose, hemoglobin A1C, blood pressure, lipids, forced expiratory volume, forced vital capacity, and peak expiratory flow rate.
- Identify drug-drug interactions and drug-disease state interactions with appropriate follow-up.
- Decrease costs for patients and increase consultation time with a pharmacist with resultant increases in patient medication compliance and improved overall health outcomes.
- Educate patients about the proper use of medical devices such as glucose testing meters and peak flow meters.
- Educate patients about the proper timing and administration of their medications.
Services provided 24 hours a day and 7 days a week:
MMC operates during normal business hours. However, sometimes a need exists for emergency after-hours coverage. In that case, the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center is readily available with highly trained pharmacists. Specialists at the Arizona Poison Control and Drug Information Center have been answering drug information questions for 50 years.
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Evaluation
The Center for Health Outcomes and PharmacoEconomic Research at The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy assesses health care interventions from a clinical, economic and humanistic view. Research focuses include cost-effectiveness analysis, quality-of-life assessment, pharmaceutical policy analysis, drug-use evaluation and more. The services provided by the MMC are constantly reviewed and modified based on research and analysis provided by this center.
For more information
Kevin Boesen, PharmD
Director, Medication Management Center
kevin.boesen@pharmacy.arizona.edu
Phone: (520) 626-3918