Intervention to Improve Appropriate Prescribing and Reduce Polypharmacy in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Internal Medicine Unit.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Polypharmacy and inappropriate medication prescriptions are associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Most interventions proposed to improve appropriate prescribing are time and resource intensive and therefore hardly applicable in daily clinical practice.

Objective

To test the efficacy of an easy-to-use checklist aimed at supporting the therapeutic reasoning of physicians in order to reduce inappropriate prescribing and polypharmacy.

Methods

We assessed the efficacy and safety of a 5-point checklist to be used by all physicians on the internal medicine wards of a Swiss hospital by comparing outcomes in 450 consecutive patients aged ≥65 years hospitalized after the introduction of the checklist, and in 450 consecutive patients ≥65 years hospitalize

SUBMITTER: Urfer M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5130196 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature