Implementing a sustainable medication reconciliation process in Australian hospitals: The World Health Organization High 5s project.

Background: Medication reconciliation (medrec) is a mandated patient safety strategy by national, including Australian, accreditation bodies. Yet there are no validated performance measures.

Objective: To determine the feasibility of implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) Medrec Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) in a range of Australian acute care facilities to achieve measurable and sustainable reductions in medication discrepancies occurring at admission.

Balancing risk versus benefit: the elderly patient's perspective on warfarin therapy.

Unlabelled: Warfarin therapy is underused in the target at-risk elderly population. Clinicians perceive that older patients are reluctant to use this therapy, however the perspective of patients or their carers has yet to be explored.

Objective: To explore in-depth the perspectives of elderly patients and/or their carers regarding the use of warfarin therapy.

Management of warfarin in atrial fibrillation: views of health professionals, older patients and their carers.

Objective: To identify the views of health professionals, patients and their carers on strategies to improve the use and management of warfarin in older patients with atrial fibrillation.

Design: Qualitative study based on analysis of group interviews.

Setting: A major metropolitan teaching hospital, from 1 March to 30 April 2003.

Warfarin use in the elderly: the nurses' perspective.

Objective: To explore the barriers to warfarin use from the perspective of nurses working in aged care.

Design: A qualitative study, involving a semi-structured group interview, during March-April 2001.

Setting And Subjects: Eleven nurses, employed within the catchment of the Northern Sydney Area Health Service, who were involved in the care of elderly warfarinised patients.

Optimizing the use of antithrombotic therapy for atrial fibrillation in older people: a pharmacist-led multidisciplinary intervention.

Objectives: To develop, implement, and evaluate a pharmacist-led multidisciplinary intervention in a hospital setting that would optimize antithrombotic use in elderly atrial fibrillation patients. The hypothesis that there would be an increase in the proportion of patients receiving antithrombotic therapy at discharge was tested.

Design: Evidence-based algorithms were developed to define the criteria (stroke risk vs contraindications) by which an elderly patient's requirement for antithrombotic therapy was assessed.