Background People with long-term conditions frequently transition between care settings that require information about a patient’s medicines to be transferred or translated between systems. This process is currently error prone and associated with unintentional changes to medications and miscommunication, which can lead to serious patient consequences. One study estimated that approximately 250,000 serious medication errors occur in England when a patient transitions from hospital to home. Digital tools can equip health care professionals with the right information at the right time and place to support practice. Objective This study aimed to answer the following questions: what systems are being used to transfer information across interfaces of care within a region of England? and what are the challenges and potential opportunities for more effective cross-sector working to support medicines optimization? Methods A team of researchers at Newcastle University conducted a qualitative study by performing in-depth semistructured interviews with 23 key stakeholders in medicines optimization and IT between January and March 2022. The interviews lasted for approximately 1 hour. The interviews and field notes were transcribed and analyzed using the framework approach. The themes were discussed, refined, and applied systematically to the data set. Member checking was also performed. Results This study revealed themes and subthemes pertaining to 3 key areas: transfer of care issues, challenges of digital tools, and future hopes and opportunities. We identified a major complexity in terms of the number of different medicine management systems used throughout the region. There were also important challenges owing to incomplete patient records. We also highlighted the barriers related to using multiple systems and their subsequent impact on user workflow, a lack of interoperability between systems, gaps in the availability of digital data, and poor IT and change management. Finally, participants described their hopes and opportunities for the future provision of medicines optimization services, and there was a clear need for a patient-centered consolidated integrated health record for use by all health and care professionals across different sectors, bridging those working in primary, secondary, and social care. Conclusions The effectiveness and utility of shared records depend on the data within; therefore, health care and digital leaders must support and strongly encourage the adoption of established and approved digital information standards. Specific priorities regarding understanding of the vision for pharmacy services and supporting this with appropriate funding arrangements and strategic planning of the workforce were also described. In addition, the following were identified as key enablers to harness the benefits of digital tools to support future medicines optimization: development of minimal system requirements; enhanced IT system management to reduce unnecessary repetition; and importantly, meaningful and continued collaboration with clinical and IT stakeholders to optimize systems and share good practices across care sectors.

BACKGROUND People with long term conditions frequently transition between care settings requiring information about a patient’s medicines to be transferred or translated between systems. This process is currently error prone and associated with unintentional changes to medications and miscommunication, which can lead to serious patient consequences. Digital tools can equip healthcare professionals with the right information, at the right time and in the right place to support practice. OBJECTIVE With several advances in the transformation of services across the NHS, a need was identified to answer the following questions: what examples of systems are being used to transfer information across interfaces of care within a region of England? And, what are the challenges and potential opportunities for more effective cross-sector working to support medicines optimisation? METHODS A team of researchers at Newcastle University conducted a qualitative study performing in-depth semi-structured interviews with 23 key medicines optimisation and IT stakeholders between January - March 2022. Interviews lasted approximately 1-hour. Interviews and fieldnotes were transcribed and analysed using the Framework approach. Themes were discussed and refined and applied systematically to the dataset. Member checking was also performed. RESULTS This work revealed themes and subthemes pertaining to three key areas: (1) Transfer of Care Issues; (2) Challenges of Digital Tools and (3) Future hopes and opportunities. We identified significant complexity in terms of the number of different medicines management systems used throughout the region and important challenges around having access to incomplete patient records. We also highlighted barriers relating to: using multiple systems and the impact on user-workflow, interoperability, digital gaps, IT systems management and change management. Finally, participants described their hopes and opportunities for the provision of medicines optimisation services in the future: there was a clear need for a patient centred consolidated integrated health record for use by all health and care professionals across different sectors, bridging those working in primary, secondary and social care. CONCLUSIONS The effectiveness and utility of shared records depends on the data within, and therefore healthcare and digital leaders must support and strongly encourage adoption of established and approved digital information standards. Further specific priorities around understanding the vision for pharmacy services and supporting this with appropriate funding arrangements and strategic planning of the workforce were also described. In addition, the following were all identified as key enablers to harness the benefits of digital tools to support medicines optimisation in the future: development of minimal system requirements, enhanced IT system management to reduce unnecessary repetition, and importantly, meaningful, and continued collaboration with clinical and IT stakeholders to optimise systems and share good practice across care sectors.