Do clinical pharmacists contribute to fall prevention in healthcare facilities also in the Czech Republic? 10 years of monitoring and experience from ÚVN Prague

Summary

Clinical pharmacists are encouraged to participate in falls prevention programs in many healthcare facilities. A uniform methodology for the work of clinical pharmacist in fall prevention has not yet been established in the Czech Republic. The aim of this work is to offer the methodology based on our own data analysis.

Retrospective clinical pharmacist's output analysis was performed in two areas: fall's pharmacoprevention and post-fall drug audits. In the results 78 % of patients who fell during hospitalization were over 65 years of age. Age was subsequently taken as the basic criterion for the patient's medication evaluation with regard to the risk of falling. Thanks to the widespread expansion of clinical pharmaceutical care and the newly introduced fall prevention and monitoring system at ÚVN Prague, there was a positive trend in the incidence of medication's adverse effects on patient's falls: in 2017 it was 34 % of cases, in 2020 only 13 %.

Based on our data and experience, we offer a methodology for the clinical pharmacist's activity in fall prevention: 1. performing revision of medication also with regard to the risk of falls in patients over 65 years of age, 2. ensuring the automatic requests sending to the clinical pharmacy department in the case of a patient's fall in a medical facility.

Keywords:

fall – clinical pharmacist – prevention – elderly – hospitalisation – drug audit – Morse Fall Scale