Pilot program aimed at reducing injuries, death due to drug side effects

By LOIS KINDLE

Medication side effects are a major problem in the United States, especially among people ages 55 and older. A two-year-old nonprofit organization called Safest Drug recently has initiated a pilot program in the Sun City Center area to prevent and alleviate the number of injuries and deaths resulting from them.

The South Shore Coalition for Mental Health and Aging, Men’s Club of Sun City Center, Seniors in Service and South Bay Hospital have partnered with Safest Drug in a communitywide initiative to increase the detection, education and reporting of these side effects and reduce resulting hospitalizations and complications.

During this pilot study, which will take place now until May, volunteer pharmacists and pharmacy students have stepped up to provide free, totally anonymous, remote screenings, primarily for participants ages 55 and older and folks taking one of more medications who either suspect or have experienced confirmed side effects. No identifiers other than a name will be taken, and even that will be coded to prevent revealing the person involved.

The screeners will ask a series of questions and report all detected adverse drug reactions to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration’s MedWatch program, monitoring pharmaceutical drug safety issues.

“We are excited about being able to not only help a (highly medicated) population group like older adults but also very committed to improving medication safety in America,” said Mika Pollack, executive director of Safest Drug. “The FDA’s reporting system is largely based on a voluntary system of reporting from healthcare providers and consumers.”

Yet millions of side effects never get reported because people don’t correlate those reactions with the medications they’re taking, Pollack said.

According to pharmacist Marina Entin, of Safest Drug, one in three hospital admissions each year across the country is due to adverse drug events (injuries due to medication) and more than 1 million people visit the ER because of them. And 39% of these were preventable.

Why these numbers are high:

“People are living longer and experiencing more chronic diseases; polypharmacy, the simultaneous use of more than five drugs and supplements by a single patient for one or more conditions; fragmented health care involving a number of different providers and pharmacies (where one hand may or may not know what the others are doing); new medications on the market; under-reporting to the FDA; and general lack of knowledge (about mediations and their side effects),” Entin said. “Some of these things are preventable, some unavoidable and some are due to negligence in the standard of care.”

The Men’s Club of Sun City Center and other organizations partnering to promote this pilot project each support older adults in the area, and all are on board.

“Working in the senior living industry has given me keen insight into the potential for medication side effects,” said Debbie Caneen, president of the Coalition for Mental Health & Aging. “I see seniors being discharged from the hospital with a good plan for future care only to open their medicine cabinets at home and realize they’re not certain which meds they should be taking. Adverse reactions and overdoses are all too common.”

Caneen added she’s excited to be part of getting the word out to the community about the pilot program to help seniors identify medication side effects, reduce needless suffering and reduce the cost to insurance companies and Medicare.

“This program allowed my mother to review all of her meds with a pharmacist, report an adverse side effect to the FDA with the pharmacist’s assistance and then receive a participant’s letter on Safest Drug letterhead, which proved to be a useful tool for her to share with her physician,” she said.

Robin Ingles, executive director of Seniors in Service, agrees.

“We are honored to support Safest Drug in providing a resource for senior voices to be heard,” she said. “We yearn for a healthcare system, including prescriptions, their usage, interactions and disposal, where seniors can feel safe that medications subscribed to provide them with a better life quality of life will not cause them harm.

“We are providing outreach to seniors to help discover potentially dangerous drug reactions,” she continued. “We continue to work with community leaders to create an enhanced system of coordinated care for our seniors.”

Safest Drug hopes that with funding ,the pilot program can be transitioned into a full program that reaches other population groups, as well.

“This is such an essential service,” said Laura Shotzberger, South Bay Hospital director of case management. “This will provide increased safety and help to improve our residents’ quality of health and overall well-being. It’s wonderful to see this service being offered to our local community.”