Dedicated clinical partners work to mitigate risk

Maura and Kristen’s clinical partnership goes beyond the standard to elevate facility wellness.

Maura Eldridge, Omnicare Consultant Pharmacist, smiling at the person across the desk from her
Maura Eldridge, Omnicare Consultant Pharmacist, smiling at the person across the desk from her

Maura and Kristen talk about clinical partnership.

Our consultant pharmacists know building meaningful clinical partnerships with our customers plays a key role in creating positive outcomes — like enhancing wellness, meeting legal requirements and mitigating risk.

We caught up with them to learn more about how they partner to mitigate risk at the facility.

Kristen Howe and Maura Eldridge smiling.

Tell us about your relationship with Omnicare® and Maura.

Over the past seven years, Maura’s earned our trust. She’s really there to help us improve. She’s been a big help with recommendations for appropriate antipsychotic utilization and getting our paperwork compliant. And now our usage is lower than both the state and national average by quite a bit.

What specific ways have you helped Kristen reduce risk at Life Care of Leominster?

Staff education is a big one. Monthly, I help them with different topics, like narcotics and narcotic security, vaccinations, fall review, med optimization and so forth. And we conduct quarterly meetings to talk about those monthly successes, too.

Kristen, talk to us about ways Maura helped you and your team reduce risk at your facility.

With regard to reducing risk, she’s looking from a compliance perspective. She reviews everyone on a psychoactive drug and leaves us monthly recommendations. It helps us meet requirements and regulations.

What kinds of outcomes has Life Care of Leominster seen as a result of using Omnicare?

We’ve been able to get certain drugs discontinued after addressing major drug interactions or side effects. All the small steps taken add up to better patient care and quality of life that wouldn’t have happened without a consultant pharmacist.

Yes, our antipsychotic use is a really big one. Another big one was rehospitalization. The Omnicare Omnicell helped keep numbers low and we have one of the lowest in the country. It stores all the medication so we don’t have to wait for a run from the pharmacy. And Maura helped us establish it.