Purdue Researcher Develops iPad Pharmacy Checklist That Could Be Prescription for Better Health

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

An interactive survey taken on an iPad could help pharmacists and patients better use their time together to identify and eliminate harmful drug side effects.

Matthew Murawski, a Purdue University associate professor of pharmacy administration, created a tool called Pharmaceutical Therapy-Related Quality of Life (PTRQoL) that presents patients with a five-question checklist that catches up to 60 percent of all known medication side effects.

"Many patients do not mention side effects to their doctor or pharmacist because they either don't recognize that they are connected to the medication or they consider them the cost they must pay to keep from being ill," Murawski said.

Exponential growth in the traffic at pharmacies has slashed the time pharmacists have with each patient to an average of two minutes - one third of what the counseling time was 20 years ago - and a system was needed to make the discovery of adverse reactions easier and more efficient, he said.

"This tool makes the few minutes available for counseling much more rewarding," Murawski said. "The checklist results allow the pharmacist to immediately see side effects the patient is experiencing and target their time to solving these problems and improving the patient's quality of life."

A patient at a pharmacy could be handed an iPad with the checklist to fill out while they wait. A list of medications, including both the generic and brand names, is presented on the first screen and the pharmacist selects the medication the patient is taking. A patient is presented with yes-or-no questions that cover the most common and serious side effect symptoms and the degree to which the problems are experienced. Once the checklist is complete, the iPad is returned to the pharmacist. The results are displayed as colored bars that show which side effects occurred and which are most problematic.

After each consultation, the pharmacist resets the checklist. Because the patient does not enter identifying information and checklist results are not saved, the same iPad can be used by multiple patients without the risk of revealing private information.

PTRQoL is available for licensing through Michael Halbrook in the Purdue Office of Technology Commercialization, at 765-588-3483, mlhalbrook@prf.org

A video about PTRQoL is located at http://youtu.be/RJfv8S6ox0o

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Purdue Researcher Develops iPad Pharmacy Checklist That Could Be Prescription for Better Health