Optimizing Patient Care: The Pharmacist’s Role in the Meds-to-Beds Program

Pharmacy Times interviewed Jennifer Winters, PharmD, MBA, CSP, and Abby Cypher, PharmD, who work in outpatient services at Allegheny Health Network in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During the discussion, they highlight the Meds-to-Beds program, a transitions of care program designed to enhance medication adherence by providing patients with their prescribed medications prior to leaving the hospital. They discuss the role of the pharmacist within this program, how they collaborate with other health care professionals, and the importance of the relationship between pharmacists and patients.

Pharmacy Times: Can you give an overview of the Meds-to-Beds program and how it is implemented?

Jennifer Winters: So, Meds-to-Beds is a transitions of care (TOC) program where a patient who's discharging from the hospital to home can receive their medications prior to leaving the hospital. At its core, Meds-to-Beds is really a medication adherence program, so the practice of professional pharmacy has been very involved with an adherence for, I would say the last 20 years. Many, many articles have touted the importance of med adherence and there have been statistics stating that, up to 33% of medication-related hospital admissions are because of patient nonadherence. There's also a dollar value assigned to patients being nonadherent to their medications, so in answer to some of that data that was coming out in the early 2000s, health systems across the nation really started to look at how can we help our patients become more compliant when they're prescribed the medication, that's often when they're impatient, or getting ready to be discharged.

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