Shared decision making and medication therapy management with the use of an interactive template

To evaluate the preliminary efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability of a template-based intervention to facilitate shared decision making (SDM) in medication therapy management (MTM) consultations; and to examine the type and number of drug therapy problems (DTPs) discussed and how resolution was communicated to patients' primary care providers (PCPs).

An internal medicine clinic at a large safety-net hospital.

Hennepin County Medical Center is an urban safety net hospital serving an ethnically-diverse population with about 50 percent of patients enrolled in Medicaid. Within its internal medicine clinic, the study setting, over 100 clinicians participate in the primary care of approximately 25,000 discrete patients.

This is the first study to use a template format to facilitate SDM with pharmacists in MTM consultations. The template approach is more flexible than the use of decision aids, facilitating discussion around various issues.

Patients completed template-guided interventions with pharmacists trained in SDM.

We analyzed the electronic health record used during the intervention, as well as post-appointment surveys administered to patients and pharmacists, for indications of SDM efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability.

Twenty patients and four pharmacists participated in the study. Free-text comments demonstrated that both patients and pharmacists appreciated the intervention, although some pharmacists had concerns including consultation length and SDM applicability. On average, two DTPs were identified per consultation and were most commonly related to appropriate compliance (30% of DTPs), appropriate indication (26%), medication effectiveness (23%), and safety (21%).

Using a template to facilitate SDM within MTM consultations appears to be effective, feasible, and acceptable. DTP identification exemplifies a potential application of template-guided SDM. These results will be used to inform future work refining the intervention and developing robust comparative analyses.