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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| Specialist medication review does not benefit short-term outcomes and net costs in continuing-care patients | | Author(s) | George Pope, Noreen Wall, Catherine Mary Peters |
| Journal title | Age and Ageing, vol 40, no 3, May 2011 |
| Pages | pp 307-312 |
| Source | http://ageing.oxfordjournals.org/ http://www.bgs.org.uk/ |
| Keywords | Medical care ; In-patients ; Geriatric hospitals ; Geriatric units ; General practitioner hospitals ; Cost benefit analysis ; Clinical surveys. |
| Annotation | The purpose of this randomised controlled trial was to evaluate specialist geriatric input and medication review in patients in high-dependency continuing care. 225 older hospital patients were randomised to either specialist geriatric input or regular input. The specialist group had a medical assessment by a geriatrician and medication review by a multidisciplinary expert panel. Regular input consisted of review as required by a medical officer attached to each ward. After six months, the total number of medications per patient per day fell from 11.64 to 11.09 in the specialist group (P = 0.0364) and increased from 11.07 to 11.5 in the regular group (P = 0.094). There was no significant difference in mortality or frequency of acute hospital transfers (11 versus 6 in the specialist versus regular group, P = 0.213). In conclusion, specialist geriatric assessment and medication review in hospital continuing care resulted in a reduction in medication use, but at a significant cost. No benefits in hard clinical outcomes were demonstrated. However, qualitative benefits and lower costs may become evident over longer periods. (JL). |
| Accession Number | CPA-110621003 A |
| Classmark | LK: LF7: LDA: LDB: LDG: WEA: 3G |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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