Interprofessional and Intraprofessional Communication about Older People’s Medications across Transitions of Care

Elizabeth Manias, Tracey Bucknall, Robyn Woodward-Kron, Carmel Hughes, Christine Jorm, Guncag Ozavci and Kathryn Joseph
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Elizabeth Manias: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research, Institute for Health Transformation, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood 3125, Australia
Tracey Bucknall: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research, Institute for Health Transformation, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood 3125, Australia
Robyn Woodward-Kron: Department of Medical Education, Melbourne Medical School, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia
Carmel Hughes: School of Pharmacy, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast BT7 1NN, UK
Christine Jorm: NSW Regional Health Partners, Wisteria House, James Fletcher Hospital, Newcastle 2300, Australia
Guncag Ozavci: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Centre for Quality and Patient Safety Research, Institute for Health Transformation, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood 3125, Australia
Kathryn Joseph: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Health, Deakin University, Burwood 3125, Australia

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 8, 1-16

Abstract: Communication breakdowns contribute to medication incidents involving older people across transitions of care. The purpose of this paper is to examine how interprofessional and intraprofessional communication occurs in managing older patients’ medications across transitions of care in acute and geriatric rehabilitation settings. An ethnographic design was used with semi-structured interviews, observations and focus groups undertaken in an acute tertiary referral hospital and a geriatric rehabilitation facility. Communication to manage medications was influenced by the clinical context comprising the transferring setting (preparing for transfer), receiving setting (setting after transfer) and ‘real-time’ (simultaneous communication). Three themes reflected these clinical contexts: dissemination of medication information, safe continuation of medications and barriers to collaborative communication. In transferring settings, nurses and pharmacists anticipated communication breakdowns and initiated additional communication activities to ensure safe information transfer. In receiving settings, all health professionals contributed to facilitating safe continuation of medications. Although health professionals of different disciplines sometimes communicated with each other, communication mostly occurred between health professionals of the same discipline. Lack of communication with pharmacists occurred despite all health professionals acknowledging their important role. Greater levels of proactive preparation by health professionals prior to transfers would reduce opportunities for errors relating to continuation of medications.

Keywords: interprofessional relations; interprofessional communication; intraprofessional communication; medication communication; older people; transitions of care; health communication; medication therapy management; medication safety (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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