(P-477) Feasibility and Acceptability of the Optimeds Tool for Multidisciplinary Medication Review in Belgian Nursing Homes

Background: Potentially inappropriate medication use at old age can lead to increased health care usage and costs. Multifaceted complex interventions involving all health care professionals in the medication management process may be more likely to improve geriatric pharmacotherapy.

Objectives: To investigate the feasibility and acceptability of the OptiMEDs intervention: a complex intervention for multidisciplinary medication (with input of nurses, pharmacists and general practitioners) review in nursing homes, with automated ICT-support for the evaluation of the appropriateness of prescribing and for patient-specific side-effect monitoring.

Methods: Structured questionnaires were distributed among the nurses, general practitioners and pharmacists that used the OptiMEDs tool to measure feasibility aspects at the participation level (general satisfaction on the tool, content and user-friendliness on a scale from 1 to 10). At the level of acceptability an online-survey with the 10-item System Usability Scale (SUS) with a max. of 100 was dispensed among nurses.

Results: A total of 33 respondents (n=12 nurses, n=19 GPs and n=2 pharmacists) filled in the survey, out of a potential 76. The participation rate was lowest for the GPs (31.3%), and highest for the pharmacists (100.0%). The median age of the respondents was 49.5 years (range 26 – 69), and 56% was male.
Median workload for nurses was 45 minutes, 20 for pharmacists, and 8 for GPs. General satisfaction was high, with a median score of 8 (IQR 6-8). Users responded positive towards using the tool in the future (median 8, IQR 7 – 9) and would recommend it to their colleagues (median 8, IQR 6.5 – 8.5). Particularly GPs appreciated the cooperation with nurses during the medication review (median 8, IQR 7.5 – 9).
The mean SUS-score was 62.7 (SD: 16.6), with a moderate learnability score of 54.2 (SD: 18.7) and a good usability score of 69.5 (SD: 14.6).

Conclusions: The OptiMEDs tool Is feasible and well accepted by the different health care workers involved in the medication review. A general implementation in Belgian nursing homes is highly recommended.