Home Medicines Review (HMR)

What is the Division’s Home Medicines Review (HMR) project?
More sophisticated models of prescribing medicines are needed for elderly and other people who run the risk of overuse and under use of drugs.

The Home Medicines Review program aims to improve health outcomes for these patients by helping General Practitioners, who provide the majority of medical care to them, assess and improve the prescription drug regime of individual patients.

What is a Home Medicine review?
The Division engages John Ware, a qualified and experienced pharmacist, as the HMR Facilitator. Following referral by a GP, he visits patients in their home, where he educates them about all the medicines, complementary products, devices and other prescriptions they are currently using.

A home medicine review visit provides:
• A snapshot of what really happens in the home.
• Information on how the has patient interpreted the directions & reason for use of their medicines.
• It includes over the counter and complementary medications eg herbal.
• Answers to questions such as what they are not taking, ie forgetting/missing doses?  What else are they doing?

This information is reported back to the patient’s general practitioner, to assist them with medications, aids and devices to improve compliance, and early detection and management of medicine related problems.

What are the benefits of Home Medicine reviews?
Over 400,000 GP visits annually are related to fixing medication problems. However, an estimated 43% to 48% of medicine related problems are preventable.

Home Medicine reviews have been shown to resolve or ameliorate medication problems in 56% of cases. But only 10% of patients estimated to need a Home Medicine review have received one!

For patients, a Home Medicine review gives them a better understanding of their prescriptions and medication. This improves compliance with a treatment regimen. In turn, treatment outcomes and patient satisfaction with care improve.

How are Home Medicine reviews arranged?
Referral is simple:
1. GP identifies the patient and obtains consent.
2. The GP sends the referral to the patient’s preferred community pharmacy.
3. The HMR facilitator visits the patient at home.
4. Following the visit, the HMR facilitator sends a written report on the visit to the referring GP.
5. The GP develops a medication management plan, and provides it to the patient and their pharmacy.
6. The GP claims on Medicare item 900.

Which patients?

• High medication users
• Multiple chronic conditions 
  • Increased risk of confusion over reasons for treatment 
  • More risk of drug-drug or drug-disease interactions
• Cultural or social issues
  • Literacy or language difficulties (refugees & older migrants)
• Other
  • Reaches those not eligible for Health Assessments, including children
  • HMR can form a Care Plan component
  • Multiple service users – multiple GPs and/or specialists
  • Recent discharge from a facility or hospital (last 4 weeks)
  • Specific drug groups
    • Anticoagulants
    • Benzodiazepines and elderly/ long-term users
    • Analgesic use – Esp. NSAIDs including COX-2 Inhibitors 

For further information please contact:
John Ware
HMR Facilitator
Telephone 0408 349 163
Email peas@mcmedia.com.au