Grant: Project Grant

Oral anticoagulants (OACs - warfarin, dabigatran, rivaroxaban and apixaban) are the very top cause of serious drug-related harm. More than 7 million prescriptions are dispensed annually for oral anticoagulants (OAC) in Canada, with more than 340,000 elderly recipients in the Ontario Drug Benefit Program alone. Because of their very high and chronic utilization, their large benefit in lowering important clinical events (stroke, clots, death) and their high potential for major harm (primarily bleeds, which can be fatal), OACs are the highest priority for improving medication safe and effective use. The early period after hospital discharge is clearly high risk, with three times the usual rate of major bleeds compared with later. Patients and families frequently note confusion about their medications after leaving the hospital due to errors or lack of detailed communication to their health care team at the time of discharge. The confusion, errors, and lack of communication are highly associated with lack of adherence to medications and resulting worse health outcomes. The combination of waste of medication and bad outcomes that result from medication errors, are estimated to cost our health care system several billion dollars annually. Since our leading economists are declaring health care to be unsustainable in its current delivery forms, it is time to find and evaluate more cost-effective ways to improve anticoagulation safety. We will do this by structuring discharge medication assessment, with formal written and verbal handovers to telehealth coordination and communication with patients and their providers, to extend access to and reduce the cost of expert anticoagulation guidance. We expect that this intervention will decrease anticoagulant-related adverse events and improve ratings of the coordination of care. If this occurs, we will develop a business plan for regions, provinces and territories to scale up the intervention to a national level.