From electronic medical records to pharmacists to geriatricians, there are various ways to help reduce the use of inappropriate medications among older adults. A new report published Dec. 1 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society examined these various mechanisms.
The report highlighted four specific studies that aimed to improve drug safety and quality for older adults. All the reports were released last year. Among the studies the report covered was the MedSafer Study, a cluster randomized clinical trial in Canada, which looked at whether patient specific deprescribing reports generated by software lowered adverse drug events in people 30 days after hospital discharge. The study showed that electronic medical records can be used to screen and reduce the rate of potentially inappropriate medications, and implies that technology alone isn’t enough to reduce adverse drug events.
Another retrospective cohort study using data from Premier Healthcare Database examined in-hospital adverse clinical events associated with perioperative gabapentin use among older adults undergoing major surgery.
A third study on 39 aged-care communities in Australia evaluated a pharmacist-led intervention to decrease medication-induced deterioration and adverse reactions.
The fourth trial engaged experts in a program to come up with a list of clinically important prescribing cascades that adversely affect older persons’ health as a way to identify, prevent and manage prescribing cascades.
“There were certain professions that had more agreement among rating the prescribing cascades namely pharmacists and geriatricians compared to general practitioners and nurses,” the team wrote.
The authors said the studies were “exemplary research on optimizing medication use in older adults,” but research using robust methods and quality data is still critical.
“By improving appropriate prescribing in clinical practice and better understanding how to
achieve this through research, we stand to improve older adults’ health outcomes,” the authors wrote.
