Objective Patient-centered approaches to improving medication adherence hold promise, but evidence of their effectiveness is unclear. This review reports the current state of scientific research around interventions to improve medication management through four patient-centered domains: shared decision-making, methods to enhance effective prescribing, systems for eliciting and acting on patient feedback about medication use and treatment goals, and medication-taking behavior. Methods We reviewed literature on interventions that fell into these domains and were published between January 2007 and May 2013. Two reviewers abstracted information and categorized studies by intervention type. Results We identified 60 studies, of which 40% focused on patient education. Other intervention types included augmented pharmacy services, decision aids, shared decision-making, and clinical review of patient adherence. Medication adherence was an outcome in most (70%) of the studies, although 50% also examined patient-centered outcomes. Conclusions We identified a large number of medication management interventions that incorporated patient-centered care and improved patient outcomes. We were unable to determine whether these interventions are more effective than traditional medication adherence interventions. Practice Implications Additional research is needed to identify effective and feasible approaches to incorporate patient-centeredness into the medication management processes of the current health care system, if appropriate.

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Aim:To investigate patient experiences with pharmacogenetic (PGx) testing. Methods: Patients were offered PGx testing through a study on pharmacist-assisted delivery of PGx testing and invited to complete pre-and post-testing surveys about their experience. Results: Of 63 patients tested, 17 completed the baseline survey (27%). Interest in testing was mostly impacted by desire to inform selection of best treatment (n = 13). Seven of 12 patients that completed the follow-up survey indicated that their provider discussed the test result with them. Five patients understood their test result very or somewhat well. All would be likely to have PGx testing again. Conclusion: Patients perceived PGx testing to be useful, though more effort may be needed to improve patient-provider communication of test results.

Aim. To investigate provider utilization of pharmacist support in the delivery of pharmacogenetic testing in a primary care setting. Methods. Two primary care clinics within Duke University Health System participated in the study between December 2012 and July 2013. One clinic was provided with an in-house pharmacist and the second clinic had an on-call pharmacist. Results: Providers in the in-house pharmacist arm consulted with the pharmacist for 13 of 15 cases, or about one of every four patients tested compared with one of every 7.5 patients in the on-call pharmacist arm. A total of 63 tests were ordered, 48 by providers in the pharmacist-in-house arm. Conclusion: These findings suggest that the availability of an in-house pharmacist increases the likelihood of pharmacogenetic test utilization.