Effect of Systematic Medication Review in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Orthopedic Department

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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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

Official Title
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The Effect of Systematic Medication Review in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Orthopedic Department.

Conditions
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Elderly

Intervention / Treatment
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* Other: Systematic medication review and advisory notes


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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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

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 65 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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No

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: Single


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Other: Intervention<br>Systematic medication review | Other: Systematic medication review and advisory notes<br>* 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<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | 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 Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Admission time |  | October 2009 | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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Medication review, Patient, Safety, Drug, Prescriptions, Drug-use