About Tipps...
The Team for Individualizing Pharmacotherapy in Primary Care for Seniors (TIPPS) Program is a multi-disciplinary resource team consisting of: an academic pharmacist, 2 academic family physicians, academic nurse, clinical pharmacologist, sociologist, internist, biostatistician and a geriatrician. TIPPS is funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Aging. This innovative program connects faculty from the Centre for Evaluation of Medicines and the Department of Family Medicine, Department of Medicine, Department of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics and School of Nursing at McMaster University.
The TIPPS program is unique in that it brings together researchers from several different backgrounds (family medicine, pharmacy, clinical pharmacology, geriatrics, internal medicine, sociology, nursing, biostatistics and epidemiology) to focus on medication use by seniors in primary care from a multidisciplinary, collaborative perspective. By working together, our Team is using our combined expertise to find better solutions to the problems seniors face when choosing or using medications. The focus is on finding solutions that meet each patient's individual needs, while taking into account the experience of the health care providers and the health care system in general.
TIPPS research projects focus on developing individualized solutions for patients, providers, and the health care system in the following areas: improving the use of therapeutic information, enhancing shared decision-making, reducing inappropriate prescribing, increasing the use of underutilized medications, determining the effect of multiple medications on an individual's benefit or risk profile, and improving compliance.
Individualizing Drug Therapy - What Does This Mean?
TIPPS research projects focus on developing individualized solutions for patients, providers, and the health care system in the following areas: improving the use of therapeutic information, enhancing shared decision-making, reducing inappropriate prescribing, increasing the use of underutilized medications, determining the effect of multiple medications on an individual's benefit or risk profile, and improving compliance. The main points of consensus included:
- Individualizing drug therapy is a process.
- Individualization of drug therapy is an outcome.
- We feel the process of individualizing drug therapy needs to focus on four areas related to drug therapy in order for successful individualization to occur:
- drug choice
- drug delivery (e.g., dose, frequency, route)
- drug adherence and monitoring strategies, and
- drug information
- A thorough patient assessment provides the foundation upon which to individualize a patient's therapeutic management.
- We recognize that patients do a lot of individualizing at home that is external to the health care system.
- Individualizing drug therapy for the elderly involves special challenges in the areas of:
- Communication
- Cognition
- Caregiver involvement
- Taking into account complex polypharmacy situations
The TIPPS program has also developed a large Network of primary care physicians, community pharmacists and patients that can collaborate with the research team. Our team along with the Network work together to tackle the many drug-related problems facing seniors today.
TIPPS Approach:
This research program focuses on improving the health of community-based seniors by carrying out research activities that address pharmacotherapeutic issues from the patient, provider, and system perspectives. Given the complex interplay of patient, provider, and system issues, our overarching approach focuses on solutions that appreciate and utilize the uniqueness of patient, provider, and system issues.
