Thursday, July 12, 2007: 1:45 PM-3:15 PM
Using Multidisciplinary Teams to Implement Evidenced Based Medicine – One Center’s Experience
Learning Objective #1: The learner will recognize the importance of using multidisciplinary teams to care for patients with chronic health conditions to implement evidenced based medicine.
Learning Objective #2: The learner will be able to identify successful strategies used at our institution to develop multidisciplinary teams to improve patient care.
It is well documented in the literature that the use of multidisciplinary teams can improve care in patients with chronic conditions resulting in increased adherence to accepted clinical practice guidelines. The University of Illinois Medical Center at Chicago (UIMCC), has been utilizing this approach to patient care for the management of our economically-challenged, inner-city heart failure patients. We recently published data indicating that patients in our HF clinic were more likely to be on guideline recommended therapy than patients in a general cardiology clinic. Treatment with a beta-blocker was 100% vs. 40%, ACE inhibitor or ARB 100 % vs. 80%, and aldosterone antagonist 31.4% vs 8.6%. Our HF failure clinic is composed of a cardiologist who specializes in heart failure, a nurse practitioner (ACNP), a cardiology fellow-in-training, and a pharmacist (PharmD). Our institution also supports two pharmacist-run programs that assist patients with difficulty managing their chronic diseases or paying for their medications. The Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Clinic provides services such as assistance in continuity of care among multiple providers regarding drug therapy, strategies to improve compliance, monitoring for medication benefit and drug related problems as well as patient education. The Medication Assistance Program (MAP) attempts to find long-term solutions for patients who have limited incomes or financial resources and who take chronic medications. The purpose of this focused discussion group is to provide our institution as an example for this model of care and educate the group on the benefits of utilizing this type of model at their institutions.
Organizer:	Dee Fontana, RN, MSN, ACNP
Presenters:	Vicki Groo, PharmD Jessica Joan Tilton, PharmD