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AMDA – The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine is challenging industry clinicians and operators to get on board with a new deprescribing campaign that aims at 25% medication reduction in long-stay residents. Combined prescribing data will be collected and trends analyzed and shared with participants.

A kick-off meeting is scheduled on May 20 for the “Drive to Deprescribe: Optimizing Medicine Use in PALTC” program, the organization announced Tuesday. Prescribers, pharmacists, chief medical officers, nurse leaders and CEOs are invited to participate.

The LTC advocate is encouraging providers to enroll in the program, participate in monthly calls, and share campaign promotional materials with key facility stakeholders. Pharmacy partners will share with AMDA the aggregated data from all participating chains and facilities.

“The data will include key metrics to measure campaign success and identify areas of opportunity,” AMDA said in a statement. Individual operator privacy will be strictly maintained, it added.

“The data shared with AMDA will not be down to the chain or facility level. We simply want to track the success of the initiative as a whole by identifying areas of opportunity and areas of success,” the organization said.

Polypharmacy is known to increase the risk of adverse events and drug interactions. The PALTC industry has one of the highest polypharmacy rates, and the issue of inappropriate medication use has been one of longstanding concern, AMDA said.

The program was developed by AMDA and ASCP, the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists.

More information and links to program resources can be found here.

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