Appropriateness of prescribing among elderly patients in a Dutch residential home

Clinically significant pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic changes occurring with age make older patients more prone to the consequences of inappropriate prescribing. The combination of higher use of medicines resulting from a higher disease burden with suboptimal treatment monitoring results in a higher risk of unwanted drug effects from sometimes inappropriate choice of drugs, doses and durations of treatment. Pharmacy services are increasingly being targeted to minimize the overall number of unnecessary and potential harmful medicines. Aims to investigate the impact of a pharmacist-led medication review on quality of prescribing by a healthcare professional team consisting of a general practitioner (GP), care home staff and a pharmacist. This observational study compared outcome measurements before and after a pharmacist-led review of medications for patients under the care of a healthcare professional team consisting of a GP, care home staff and pharmacist. The procedure for conducting and recording the medication review consisted of the preparation of a patient medication profile, which combined the patient's medical records with his or her complete prescription record (current and previous [last 3 years] medication history) and pharmaceutical record (electronic journal entries for the patient over the same period). Laboratory values were evaluated in clinical context. Recommendations for the pharmaceutical plan were discussed at a conference involving the clinical pharmacist and other healthcare team members. Patients were recruited for medication review over the 12-month period 1 April 2003 to 1 April 2004. Medication appropriateness was assessed by an independent panel of clinical pharmacists using the Medication Appropriateness Index (MAI). A total of 54 patients were eligible according to the inclusion criteria, of whom 24 were subsequently excluded for various reasons; thus, 30 patients were eligible for assessment on the MAI. There was a statistically significant difference between overall pre- and post-intervention summed MAI scores (p = 0.013). The pharmacist identified 115 drug-related problems, and the total number of accepted recommendations was 78 (67.8%). Use of a medication review as an intervention by a clinical pharmacist was associated with an improvement in appropriateness of prescribing. This study provides evidence supporting the formal integration of a clinical pharmacist into the healthcare team with the aim of improving prescribing appropriateness for institutionalized elderly Dutch patients. Overall MAI scores for all long-term medications used by a group of elderly patients improved significantly after a pharmacist-led medication review. This is an important finding because quality of prescribing is assuming increasing importance as a means of preventing avoidable medication-related harm

Reliability of the medication appropriateness index in Dutch residential home

To validate the reliability of the Medication Appropriateness Index in the appraisal of quality of prescribing by assessing the inter- and intra-group variation in Dutch residential home patients. Eight raters evaluated 81 medication records of 15 patients from a group of older patients living in a residential nursing home the Netherlands. These patients had been recruited for a medication review investigation throughout a period of 12 months over the period April 2003 until April 2004. Patient information was acquired by connecting the medical record with the complete prescription record and pharmaceutical record. Each patient was assessed twice by two independent reviewers on the basis of a patient profile in combination with the extracted medical record and using a structured procedure. A summed MAI score, percent agreement, kappa, positive and negative agreement as well as intra-class correlation coefficient were calculated for each criterion. Medication appropriateness was assessed with the Medication Appropriateness Index (MAI) by an independent panel of Dutch hospital and community pharmacists. The overall percentage agreement was 83%. For each of the 10 different medication appropriateness questions it ranged from 79 to 100% for appropriate and from 47 to 60% for inappropriate ratings. The overall chance adjusted inter-rater agreement reached a moderate kappa score of 0.47. The overall intra-group agreement was very good with an overall percentage of 98 and a kappa score of at least 0.84 (all schemes). In a Dutch institutionalised setting with representative raters, the unmodified MAI can be used as an instrument to quantify changes in appropriateness of prescribing