Collective therapeutic education sessions are already in place in our hospital. However, these collective sessions only concern a minority of patients (those included in a program) and are infrequent.

The purpose of pharmaceutical consultations on oral anticoagulants (Vitamin K antagonists and direct oral anticoagulants) is to give advice to patients and to provide them with all necessary information for the proper use of the medicine in question, systematically during the hospital stay. Some patients will never benefit from therapeutic education sessions, so those pharmaceutical consultations are a way of reaching them.

Patients who benefit from those consultations are patients with an oral anticoagulant, hospitalized in the medicine department. Patients with severe cognitive disorders are not included. Patients answer a questionnaire before and after the consultation, in order to see the evolution of the score. A printed summary of the main points is given at the end of the consultation. A phone call is made to patients one month after the consultation, in order to take stock, to re-evaluate the score and to answer patients’ further questions.

During 6 months, 54 patients benefited from consultations in their hospital room. The average knowledge score is 10.7/20 before the consultation and 18.4/20 after the consultation. 37 patients answered the questionnaire one month after the consultation (over the phone): they obtained an average score of 16.3/20.

Pharmaceutical consultations on oral anticoagulants have made it possible to reach more patients than our therapeutic education program. Our method is effective since patients have a knowledge score, which is higher after the consultation, and one month after the consultation the score remains higher than it initially was.