Development of pharmaceutical services to improve medication safety

Medication safety is an essential component of pharmaceutical services. Ongoing research projects in our working group on this topic deal with the development and evaluation of novel patient-related pharmaceutical services with the aim of identifying and preventing drug-related problems.

In Germany, only few community pharmacies have so far implemented a structured medication management for their patients. In cooperation with the pharmacists' chamber of Westphalia-Lippe (Apothekerkammer Westfalen-Lippe) and the health insurance fund Allgemeine Ortskrankenkasse (AOK) NordWest, we evaluated the influence of a structured medication review program in community pharmacies for patients with polymedication on the quality of drug therapy. In a current project, measures for quality assurance of medication reviews in pharmacies (quality indicators, round-robin tests) are being developed.