Frail Elderly Inpatient
Conditions
Keywords
Frail elderly, Pharmaceutical services, Drug therapy, Geriatrics, Randomized controlled trial, Hospitals, teaching
Brief summary
The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a collaborative approach (geriatric care involving the collaboration with a clinical pharmacist) to optimize the prescription of medicines for elderly inpatients.
Detailed description
Widespread evidence reveals frequent inadequate use of medicines in elderly patients. This includes inappropriate prescribing (overuse, underuse, misuse) that can lead to adverse drug events and drug-related admissions to hospital. In addition, when a patient is transferred from acute care settings to ambulatory care settings, discrepancies in medicines used often occur and can be hazardous. Despite this, only limited data exist on the effectiveness of optimization strategies targeted at frail elderly inpatients. Comparison: elderly inpatients receiving geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) care versus elderly inpatients receiving pharmaceutical care in addition to GEM care.
Interventions
BEHAVIORALPharmaceutical care
Sponsors
Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique
Université Catholique de Louvain
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
ECT
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
70 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* Patient admitted on the acute geriatric unit of the university teaching hospital Mont-Godinne, Belgium
Exclusion criteria
* a terminal illness and life expectancy of less than 3 month * expected length of stay of 2 days or less * transfer from another unit where the patient had already been cared for by a GEM team * refusal to participate * inclusion during previous admission * no time for the clinical pharmacist to compound the abstracted chart within 3 days of admission
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Appropriateness of prescribing (using the Medication Appropriateness Index, the Beers criteria, and the ACOVE criteria of underuse) on admission, at discharge, and 3 months post-discharge | — |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Polymedication on admission, at discharge, and 1,3,12 months after discharge | — |
| Mortality, readmission to hospital and visit to the emergency department 1,3,12 months after discharge | — |
| Satisfaction with information received on medicines | — |
Countries
Belgium
Outcome results
None listed