Abstract
Background
Comprehensive geriatric assessment of hospitalised patients implies optimising patients’ medical treatment, and good coordination between hospital and general practice is essential for the quality of the drug treatment. Only a few studies have investigated the continuation of patients’ medication from primary care to hospital and back again to primary care.
Objectives
To describe changes of drug therapy during hospital stay in a geriatric ward and the following acceptance of these changes in primary cares after discharge.
Methods
An observational register study following 1,550 geriatric patients’ pharmacological treatment longitudinally across hospital stay, by linkage of a primary care prescription database and hospital medical records. The medication regimens for the individual patients were compared at three cross sections: primary care before hospitalisation, during hospital stay and primary care after hospitalisation, analysed according to drug therapy, co-morbidity, functionality and outpatient follow-up.
Results
Patients were using an average of 8.2 drugs before hospital admission, of which an average of 0.9 drugs per patient was discontinued or switched during hospitalisation. An average of 1.7 new drugs per patient was initiated by the hospital physicians. After discharge, 63.9 % of the changes initiated by hospital physicians were continued in primary care. Of new drugs initiated in hospital 42.7 % were accepted in primary care.
Conclusions
A relatively small proportion of drugs was switched or discontinued and the average number of drugs increased during hospital stay. Of these changes, two thirds were accepted in primary care after discharge and less than half of newly initiated drugs were continued in primary.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ellis G, Langhorne P (2004) Comprehensive geriatric assessment for older hospital patients. Bri Med Bull 71:45–59
Sergi G, De Rui M, Sarti S, Manzato E (2011) Polypharmacy in the elderly: can comprehensive geriatric assessment reduce inappropriate medication use? Drugs & aging 28(7):509–518
Mansur N, Weiss A, Beloosesky Y (2008) Relationship of in-hospital medication modifications of elderly patients to postdischarge medications, adherence, and mortality. Ann Pharmacother 42(6):783–789
Beers MH, Dang J, Hasegawa J, Tamai IY (1989) Influence of hospitalization on drug therapy in the elderly. J Am GeriatrSoc 37(8):679–683
Kruse W, Rampmaier J, Frauenrath-Volkers C, Volkert D, Wankmuller I, Micol W et al (1991) Drug-prescribing patterns in old age. A study of the impact of hospitalization on drug prescriptions and follow-up survey in patients 75 years and older. EurJ Clin Pharmacol 41(5):441–447
Kripalani S, LeFevre F, Phillips CO, Williams MV, Basaviah P, Baker DW (2007) Deficits in communication and information transfer between hospital-based and primary care physicians: implications for patient safety and continuity of care. JAMA J Am Med Assoc 297(8):831–841
Himmel W, Kochen MM, Sorns U, Hummers-Pradier E (2004) Drug changes at the interface between primary and secondary care. IntJ Clin Pharmacol Ther 42(2):103–109
Glintborg B, Andersen SE, Dalhoff K (2007) Insufficient communication about medication use at the interface between hospital and primary care. Qual Saf Health Care 16(1):34–39
Mansur N, Weiss A, Hoffman A, Gruenewald T, Beloosesky Y (2008) Continuity and adherence to long-term drug treatment by geriatric patients after hospital discharge: a prospective cohort study. Drugs Aging 25(10):861–870
Himmel W, Tabache M, Kochen MM (1996) What happens to long-term medication when general practice patients are referred to hospital? EurJ Clin Pharmacol 50(4):253–257
Collin C, Wade DT, Davies S, Horne V (1988) The Barthel ADL Index: a reliability study. Int Disabil Stud 10(2):61–63
The Ministry of Health and Prevention (2008) Health Care in Denmark, http://www.sum.dk/en, Accessed May 2012.
Danish medicine Agency (2011) Elderly people’s consumption of medicinal products, http://www.laegemiddelstyrelsen.dk/en, Accessed May 2013
Glintborg B, Poulsen HE, Dalhoff KP (2008) The use of nationwide on-line prescription records improves the drug history in hospitalized patients. Br J Clin Pharmacol 65(2):265–269
Gaist D, Sorensen HT, Hallas J (1997) The Danish prescription registries. Dan Med Bull 44(4):445–448
WHO Collaborating Centre for Drug Statistics Methodology (2010) Guidelines for ATC classification and DDD assignment 2011. Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo
Frank L, Epidemiology (2000) When an entire country is a cohort. Science 287(5462):2398–2399
Pedersen CB (2011) The Danish Civil Registration System. Scand J Public Health 39(7 Suppl):22–25
Charlson ME, Pompei P, Ales KL, MacKenzie CR (1987) A new method of classifying prognostic comorbidity in longitudinal studies: development and validation. J ChronicDis 40(5):373–383
Thygesen SK, Christiansen CF, Christensen S, Lash TL, Sorensen HT (2011) The predictive value of ICD-10 diagnostic coding used to assess Charlson comorbidity index conditions in the population-based Danish National Registry of Patients. BMC Med Res Methodol 11:83
O’Mahony D, Gallagher P, Ryan C, Byrne S, Hamilton H, Barry P et al (2010) STOPP & START criteria: A new approach to detecting potentially inappropriate prescribing in old age. Eur Geriatr Med 1(1):45–51
Johannesdottir SA, Maegbaek ML, Hansen JG, Lash TL, Pedersen L, Ehrenstein V (2012) Correspondence between general practitionerreported medication use and timing of prescription dispensation. Clin Epidemiol 4:13–18
Danish State Serum Institute, Distrubution of over-the-counter analgesic drugs (1996–2010) [Salg af smertestillende håndkøbslægemidler 1996–2010]. http://www.ssi.dk/, Accessed July 2013
Larsen MD, Cars T, Hallas J (2012) A MiniReview of the Use of Hospital-based Databases in Observational Inpatient Studies of Drugs. Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology.
Acknowledgments
We wish to thank Henrik Støvring, Aarhus University and Daniel Pilsgaard Henriksen, University of Southern Denmark for assistance of the data management of this study and Henrik Horneberg for language revision.
Conflict of interest
Jesper Hallas has previously participated in research projects funded by Novartis, Pfizer, Menarini, MSD, Nycomed, Astellas and Alkabello with grants paid to the institution where he was employed. He has received personal fees for teaching and consulting from the Danish Association of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and from Nycomed, Astellas, Pfizer, Novartis, Astra Zeneca, Menarini, Leo Pharmaceuticals and Ferring.
Jens-Ulrik Rosholm has received personal fees for teaching form Norpharma, LEO Pharma, Astella and Astra-Zeneca.
Michael Duel Larsen, none declared.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Larsen, M.D., Rosholm, J.U. & Hallas, J. The influence of comprehensive geriatric assessment on drug therapy in elderly patients. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 70, 233–239 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-013-1601-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-013-1601-x