Aug 23, 2013: Medication therapy management (MTM) is a key area of focus in efforts to reduce avoidable readmissions. Todd Lemke, PharmD, CDE, of the Paynesville Area Health Care System, a small rural critical access hospital, was able to quantify the success of his team’s MTM efforts with 70 Medicare fee-for-service patients (out of a group of 222 anticoagulation patients with two to five chronic conditions, including atrial fibrillation, blood clots and strokes).

His analysis of these high-risk patients from January 2008 through May 2012 showed that they have a much lower readmission rate than the national average for Medicare patients: 8.8 percent (a 50 percent improvement), compared with the national average of about 18 percent.

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Proactive involvement of pharmacist as member of interdisciplinary patient care team