Maine Quality Counts Podcast

As the incidence of multiple chronic diseases increases among older patients, so does the phenomenon of polypharmacy. Forty percent of community-dwelling older adults take five or more medications per day. Fifty percent of nursing home residents take nine or more. And in the inpatient setting, the rates are even higher. According to the DHHS, “the burden of taking multiple medications has been associated with greater health care costs and an increased risk of adverse drug events, drug-interactions, medication non-adherence, reduced functional capacity and multiple geriatric syndromes.” In this webinar, we present “person-centered deprescribing,” a new approach to reducing medication burden that a 2014 British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology article hails “as the first deprescribing process developed using knowledge of the patients' views of medication cessation; it focuses on engaging patients throughout the process, with the aim of improving long-term health outcomes.” Please join presenters Dr. Roger Renfr