G231(P) Implementation of ‘My Medication Passport’ in the Paediatric Population: Provisional Lessons Gained from Patient and Parent Feedback

Abstract

Aims My Medication Passport (MMP) is a booklet and app developed to allow recording of medications and allergies, aiming to improve patient involvement in conversations about their medicines and bridge possible communication gaps between primary, secondary and tertiary care in prescribing. Medication errors are relatively common in children as prescribing is often dependant on age, weight or body surface area. Our aim was to evaluate the potential use of MMP in the paediatric population by asking patients and parents if they if they would find MMP useful and issues they had experienced in inpatient and outpatient prescribing. Methods All children were recruited from hospital in both inpatient and outpatient settings. Inclusion criteria were patients aged between 0–17 years, regularly taking one or more medication. After consent was obtained, patients and families were given a questionnaire assessing whether parents or patients would find MMP useful, as well as other questions about problems they had experienced with medication prescribing in hospital and the community. The content of the initial surveys were designed with input from patients, parents, pharmacists and doctors. They were generated using an online survey tool and subsequently exported to Excel. Results 15 patients and families were consulted. The median age of the patient was 10 years, and median number of medications was 6. 80% of patients and families consulted said they would find MMP useful. All of these said they would store a list of medications on the app followed by 87% using it for dose information and 73% for medication frequency. Only one patient would use the app for information about medical conditions. Importantly, 20% of the sample asked had experienced incorrect medications being prescribed when in hospital. Conclusions MMP shows potential in the paediatric age group. It could help encourage patient and parent involvement in medication management as well as reducing errors in prescribing. A further study involving a larger number of patients and families, pharmacists and doctors would be helpful in assessing specific changes that need to be made to the existing passport to adapt it to a paediatric population.