Medscape—April 6, 2017
Medscape interviewed HSS rheumatologist Theodore R. Fields, MD, FACP and social worker Adena Batterman, MSW, LCSW, on their joint study of a multidisciplinary approach to managing gout.
Their goal was to "put together a multidisciplinary team that also included social work," said Dr. Fields. "We wanted to make sure anything we were giving patients was written at a reading level that everyone can understand. We want to help patients deal with financial aspects of care, and such things as transportation. We want to get them to adhere to their medicine, get the correct lab tests they need, and come back for their follow-up visits."
As part of the approach, pharmacists called patients to see if they were taking their medicine. Nurse participants recorded patient scores on a gout self-efficacy exam with 12 questions about their knowledge of gout.
At the end of the study, Batterman said it "really supports the fact we need a comprehensive approach to help these patients stay on their medications. We think that the multidisciplinary approach that we used may be very useful in settings that have all of these different types of professionals under one roof."
Read the full interview at Medscape.com
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