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The potential to quantify polypharmacy in older adult hospital inpatients using electronic prescribing software: A feasibility study

Connor, Nick; Woodward, Simon; Norwood, Mark; Sturrock, Nigel; Woodward, James; Skelly, Rob; Butterfield, Richard; Lewis, Sarah; Fogarty, Andrew

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Authors

Nick Connor

Simon Woodward

Mark Norwood

Nigel Sturrock

James Woodward

Rob Skelly

Richard Butterfield

ANDREW FOGARTY ANDREW.FOGARTY@NOTTINGHAM.AC.UK
Clinical Associate Professor & Reader in Clinical Epidemiology



Abstract

Polypharmacy in older adults is a growing problem, as some drugs may be either unnecessary or even harmful. Admission to hospital under a Medicine for the Elderly specialist physicians represents an opportunity to review patients’ medication. The recent introduction of electronic prescribing to some hospitals in the United Kingdom allows the development of tools to measure polypharmacy in in-patients, and subsequently to assess the efficacy of interventions that aim to optimize medication prescribing. We tested the feasibility of developing an Excel-based software code that measured the number of medications a group of patients were taking at admission and how many of these were still prescribed on discharge. Electronic prescribing data was obtained from the Royal Derby Hospital, over a period of 52 weeks from April 2017 to March 2018 for all patients over the age of 65 years who were admitted onto the medicine for the elderly wards and subsequently discharged. On admission, the median number of eligible medications was 11 (interquartile range IQR 8 to 15). At the time of discharge, the median number of eligible medications retained since admission was 9 (IQR 6 to 12). This represents a median number of medications that have been removed from the current medication regimen of 2 (IQR 1 to 3, p [less than] 0.001). Electronic prescribing software in hospitals allows the development of tools to measure the burden of medications, and to examine the efficacy of future interventions that are developed to optimize drug prescribing in older adults.

Citation

Connor, N., Woodward, S., Norwood, M., Sturrock, N., Woodward, J., Skelly, R., …Fogarty, A. (2020). The potential to quantify polypharmacy in older adult hospital inpatients using electronic prescribing software: A feasibility study. Health and Technology, 10, 823–826. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-020-00419-4

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 10, 2020
Online Publication Date Mar 16, 2020
Publication Date 2020-05
Deposit Date Mar 16, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Health and Technology
Electronic ISSN 2190-7188
Publisher Springer Verlag
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 10
Pages 823–826
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/s12553-020-00419-4
Keywords Polypharmacy , Older adults, Electronicprescribing, Drugs
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/4153274
Publisher URL https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs12553-020-00419-4

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