Elderly
Conditions
Keywords
Medication review, Patient, Safety, Drug, Prescriptions, Drug-use
Brief summary
Elderly patients have a higher risk of experiencing adverse drug events due to an age related increase in morbidity and medication use. Inappropriate or wrong medication use among elderly patients acutely admitted to hospitals is assumed to result in earlier contact to general practitioner, emergency departments and re-admissions if not corrected during hospital admission. It is therefore our hypothesis that a systematic medication review conducted by pharmacists and physicians specialized in pharmacology will increase time to first unscheduled physician contact (general practitioner, emergency departments, ambulatory care and re-admissions) after discharge from hospital from an average of 21days to 25 days. Further, the following secondary outcome parameters will be measured at discharge and within 3-month follow-up: * length of in-hospital stay * number of contacts to general practitioner 30 days after discharge, that resulted in medication changes * number of re-admissions at 3-month * number of death at 3-month * number of contact to primary health care at 3-month * patients self-experienced quality of health(EQ-5D) 3-month
Interventions
OTHERSystematic medication review and advisory notes
Within 24 hours of admission a pharmacist retrieve medication histories from patients included in the intervention group. Medication histories will be obtained from - medical records, medication charts, patients electronical medication profile, interview with patients and if necessary contact to the patients general practitioner. The obtained medication history will be discussed with a physician specialized in pharmacology and an advisory note with suggested changes to the patients medication is added to the medical record. The orthopedic physicians are not obliged to follow the suggested changes
Sponsors
Aarhus University Hospital
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE (Outcomes Assessor)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
65 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
* age 65 years or older * expected admission time of more than 24 hours * acute admission
Exclusion criteria
* Psychotic patients * Moribund patients * Suicidal patients
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Time to first unscheduled physician contact(general practitioner,emergency department, ambulatory care or re-admission to hospital) after discharge from the Orthopaedic Department | January 2010 |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame |
|---|---|
| Admission time | October 2009 |
Countries
Denmark
Outcome results
None listed