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Dr Kieran Dalton Wins Best Poster Presentation Award at the FIP World Congress
Congratulations to Dr Kieran Dalton, Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy, who won the Best Poster Presentation Award for the Hospital Pharmacy section at the FIP World Congress held in Cape Town, South Africa on September 1st-4th 2024.
The 82nd FIP World Congress of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences took place in Cape Town, South Africa from the 1st to 4th of September 2024. Dr Kieran Dalton (pictured above) won the Best Poster Presentation Award for the Hospital Pharmacy section at this conference for a study that involved pharmacist-led medication optimisation for palliative care patients.
This poster was selected as the winner from 128 posters in this category, and Kieran was presenting this study on behalf of the research team, which included Ciarán McAdam and Eimear O’Dwyer – both of whom are pharmacists working in Our Lady's Hospice & Care Services.
Ciarán McAdam was the primary researcher for this study, which was titled “Pharmacist-led deprescribing of potentially inappropriate medications for cancer patients in a specialist palliative care setting”. Deprescribing (which typically refers to stopping medications and/or lowering their dose) is important to help reduce adverse drug events in patients, especially those who are more vulnerable to medication-related harm.
This study invention included pharmacists performing a medication review, by applying a deprescribing guideline combined with their clinical judgement to identify potentially inappropriate or unnecessary medications for palliative care patients, and then communicating the deprescribing recommendations with the medical team overseeing the patients’ care.
All patients in this study were prescribed at least one potentially unnecessary medication at baseline, and one quarter of all patients’ regular medications were potentially unnecessary. After discussions with the medical team and patients, 71.7% of the deprescribing recommendations were implemented. This study highlighted the value of pharmacist-led deprescribing – reducing the number of medications, nurse time in administering medications, and the medication costs. It has also emphasised the need for more proactive deprescribing before reaching inpatient palliative care.
This FIP World Congress was attended by over 3,300 delegates from 97 countries, meaning a large global reach and indicating the importance of conducting deprescribing research in this setting. This study is currently under review with an academic peer-reviewed journal, so it is hopeful that all the findings from this study will be published in the near future.
This study was conducted as part of Ciarán’s MSc Clinical Pharmacy in UCC’s School of Pharmacy. This course represents an excellent opportunity for pharmacists to undertake and publish their clinical research, and more information on this course can be found here.