Abstracts

Rationale: There is a need to provide concise and consistent education on newly prescribed medications to ensure adherence and knowledge around drug therapy in the pediatric neurology patient population. Due to lack of standard process for patient education there is commonly a wide variety of information offered by different healthcare providers. In addition, the information that is currently available from drug information resources may not be specific to the pediatric epilepsy population and therefore not applicable or appropriate to ensure the desired goals for patient education. The purpose of this quality improvement project is to create and implement antiepileptic drug (AED) patient education cards with the following goals: Provide easily accessible pediatric education for AEDs to providers, counsel patients/caregivers on newly prescribed AEDs, create consistency amongst healthcare providers in information provided, and increase patient/caregiver knowledge of their medication.Methods: AED patient education cards were created utilizing drug information resources and expert opinion; example shown below. Hardcopies of the cards are located in clinic rooms and inpatient areas as a 5x7 laminated card in both English and Spanish, bound on a ring. Information is also available electronically in our electronic medical record to allow for printing upon discharge. To assess what the current practice is for counseling patients at our institution, a survey to healthcare providers will be performed. A patient survey will also be completed to compare viewpoints. Both surveys will be anonymous. Survey to healthcare providers (answer choices: always, sometimes, or never) What information do you provide to patients when they are started on a new medication How to take (with food vs without, shake suspension first, etc) Potential drug interactions Common side effects Serious side effects/when to contact healthcare provider Do you provide a handout to patients with information regarding their newly prescribed antiepileptic drugs? If there was an easily accessible, concise handout for antiepileptic drug patient education, would you find this to be a beneficial and helpful resource?Results: Eighty-five healthcare providers filled out the pre-implementation survey. Half are nurses, 24% attending physicians, and 17% resident trainees. The majority (67%) always tell patients how to administer the medication, but close to 20% never discuss the potential for drug-drug interactions, with 40% never discussing if the interaction is with oral contraception. Thirty percent of providers never provide a handout upon discharge, but 99% of providers would find a handout a beneficial and helpful resource to patients.Conclusions: The creation and design of AED education cards can create a method to standardize education amongst various healthcare providers. Results from patient and post-implementation healthcare provider surveys will be reported.