A cross-border trial has improved care for patients prescribed multiple medicines.
That's according to the iSIMPATHY project which worked with professionals in Scotland, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, over the last two years, to comprehensively review patient medication.
A number of GPs across Cavan and Monaghan participated in the trial which saw success for many patients taking more than five medicines.
Kiara Kirke who is the Clinical Lead with the National Medication Safety Programme in the HSE and HSE Lead with iSIMPATHY says the project was a huge success.
She added that medicines are the most common healthcare intervention used within the health system, and the use of the right medicine for the right patient at the right time was central to the trial's outcome.
"What it brought for us in Ireland in particular was bringing in that service really of pharmacists doing a review from the GP practice with access to all of the patients and the information and the GP. It's really important for us that we knew from other countries and we knew from research here that it was possible and it was likely to achieve benefits but until we had implemented it, we didn't know exactly what we would achieve"
