Healthcare Redesign of Medication Management for Parkinson’s Inpatients

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disorder reliant on medication regime adherence to alleviate symptomology. When hospitalised, people with Parkinson’s disease have specific medication management needs which are consistently unmet. This study aims to develop, implement and evaluate solutions for improving the medication management of inpatients with Parkinson’s disease. A healthcare redesign approach was utilised, focusing on the final three phases: solutions design, implementation and evaluation. Five solutions were derived: formalise routine patient identification, provide improved staff education, develop and install automated prescriber alerts, review and amend ward PD medication stock, and develop systematic prompts for PD medications. The findings suggest that our solutions sustainably improved systems and processes that contribute to quality and safe medication management for Parkinson’s patients. Correct identification of Parkinson’s patients within an acute care hospital leads to correct prescription of medications, timeliness of medication administration and timely pharmacy review. The length of stay was not positively impacted.