Deprescribing Initiatives Using Community Engagement (DICE) and Education (DICEE)

The Deprescribing Initiatives Using Community Engagement (DICE) project explored how public and health care professional community engagement strategies can be used to implement deprescribing into the routine care of patients in a community within the Champlain Local Health Integration Network. The research team worked with a Local Advisory Group to identify community needs and then co-developed a plan for a series of interactive public education sessions to build medication management capacity among older people in their community. The original grant was terminated early (as were all similar HSRF grants in Ontario) in July 2019. The research team and LAG hosted a single event in June 2019 to honour the commitment made to the community; a planning guide for this event “Talking about Your Medications” was produced. The research team received a grant from CABHI to carry out the originally planned face-to-face public education series in the spring of 2020 (DICEE).  In light of COVID-19 restrictions, the research team delivered this program virtually in November 2020 in partnership with Living Healthy Champlain. The research team used feedback received from the pilot’s participants, along with their experience piloting the workshops, to create an Implementation Guide and Facilitator’s Toolkit and to revise the Participant Workbook content.

On January 13th 2021, the research team held a support webinar where the team explained how healthcare providers could use these materials to easily deliver the “Talking About Your Medications” workshop series for people living in their communities. A recording of this webinar, as well as all the Implementation Guide, Facilitator’s Toolkit, Participant Workbooks and Workshop PowerPoint Presentations, are now available for people to view and download free-of-charge here.

Lead: Dr. Barbara Farrell, Bruyère Research Institute

Co-investigators: Dr. James ConklinDr. Lisa McCarthy, Dr. Lalitha Raman-Wilms

Contact: [email protected]

Funder (2017-2019): Government of Ontario, HSRF

Funder (2019-2021): Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CABHI), SPARK grant

Access the ‘Talking About Your Medications: A Community-Event Planning Guide’

Access the ‘Talking About Your Medications’ Workshop Materials’