Much of my work as a consultant pharmacist int nursing homes (long term care facilities) is reviewing the medication list for each resident. I often see residents who are taking 3 or 4 antidepressants every day, and this is approved by the psychiatrist in the facility. Since becoming certified in Pharmacogenomics (PGx), I started writing the following recommendation when I see that someone is on multiple antidepressants. It goes something like “The resident is currently on 3 antidepressants. Please consider ordering a Pharmacogenomic test (feel free to reach out to me how this can be ordered) to see which antidepressant(s) is compatible with the resident’s unique genetic makeup.”
Antidepressants is only one example of a class of medications that have drug-gene interactions. There are many more medications that have drug-gene interactions.
Here’s a victory. For the first time, I received an email yesterday from a nurse manager asking me questions about the PGx test because of the recommendation that I made for a resident to have one done! I was so excited that someone finally reached out to me about it that I started dancing!
Here’s the email: “One of your recommendations includes a PGx test. Can you please discuss how we would order this test, what the benefits are for this age population, and how much the test would cost for a private pay and/or Medicaid resident?”
The day will come (and I hope and pray it won’t be in the distant future) when each nursing home resident will be offered a PGx test to ensure that the medications they’re on are appropriate for them. That’s personalized medication. Pharmacists are here to help!
