학술논문

Reduction in targeted potentially inappropriate medication use in elderly inpatients: a pragmatic randomized controlled trial
Document Type
Original Paper
Source
European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. October 2017 73(10):1237-1245
Subject
Older adults
Computerized alert system
Potentially inappropriate medications
Hospital
Knowledge translation
Language
English
ISSN
0031-6970
1432-1041
Abstract
Purpose:The use of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in hospitalized older adults is a complex problem, but the use of computerized alert systems (CAS) has shown some potential. The study’s objective is to assess the change in PIM use with a CAS-based pharmacist-physician intervention model compared to usual clinical care.Methods:Pragmatic single-site randomized controlled trial was conducted at a university teaching hospital. Hospitalizations identified with selected Beers or STOPP criteria were randomized to usual clinical care or to the CAS-based pharmacist-physician intervention. The primary outcome was PIM drug cessation or dosage decrease. Clinical relevance of the CAS alerts was assessed.Results:Analyses included 231 patients who had 128 and 126 hospitalizations in the control and intervention groups, respectively. Patients had a mean age of 81, and 60% were female. In the intervention compared to the control group, drug cessation or dosage decrease were more frequent at 48 h post-alert (45.8 vs 15.9%; absolute difference 30.0%; 95%CI 13.8 to 46.1%) and at discharge from the hospital (48.1 vs 27.3%; absolute difference 20.8%; 95%CI 4.6 to 37.0%). In a post hoc analysis of all alerts, regardless of their clinical relevance, the absolute difference in drug cessation or dosage decrease between the intervention and control groups was 16.2% (95%CI 2.9 to 29.6%) at 48 h and 8.0% (95%CI −4.0 to 20.0%) at discharge from the hospital.Conclusions:In hospitalized older adults, a CAS-based pharmacist-physician intervention, compared to usual clinical care, resulted in significant higher number of drug cessation and dosage reductions for targeted PIMs.