Identifying Potential Drug-Related Problems Among Geriatric Patients With Use of an Integrated Clinical Decision Support Tool

Veera Bobrova; Daniela Fialová; Shane Desselle; Jyrki Heinämäki; Daisy Volmer

doi:10.3389/fphar.2022.761787

Identifying Potential Drug-Related Problems Among Geriatric Patients With Use of an Integrated Clinical Decision Support Tool

Front Pharmacol. 2022 Mar 28:13:761787. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2022.761787. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Veera Bobrova¹, Daniela Fialová^{2

3}, Shane Desselle⁴, Jyrki Heinämäki¹, Daisy Volmer¹

Affiliations

¹ Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Pharmacy, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
² Department of Social and Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy in Hradec Králové, Charles University, Prague, Czechia.
³ Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University, Prague, Czechia.
⁴ Touro University California College of Pharmacy, Vallejo, CA, United States.

Abstract

Background: Drug-related problems (DRPs) which arise from potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) are a common problem in older people with multi-morbidity and polypharmacy. Aim: To develop an integrated PIM clinical decision support tool for identification of DRPs in geriatric multi-morbid polypharmacy patients, using the EU(7)-PIM and EURO-FORTA lists, with a focus on high-risk medications. Methods: The integrated PIM tool used the information on PIMs in both databases-the EU(7)-PIM and EURO-FORTA. PIMs were classified into four color groups based on risk profile: high-risk PIMs (should be avoided in older patients) as red, moderate-risk PIMs (require dose and/or treatment duration adjustment) as yellow, low-risk PIMs (low DRP risk) as green, and questionable PIMs (incomplete/missing information) as grey. Results: The summarized list of the high-risk (red and some grey) PIMs contained 81 active substances and medication classes. According to the ATC classification, most of the high-risk PIMs (n = 60, 74.1%) belong to the A, C, and N medication groups and 50.6% (n = 41) of the high-risk PIMs have currently marketing authorization in Estonia. The preliminary list of the moderate- and low-risk (yellow, green, and other grey) PIMs contained 240 active substances and medication classes, but sub-classification of this category into one or another group depends mainly on an individual patient´s clinical characteristics in a concrete analyzed study sample and needs further research. Conclusion: The integrated clinical decision support tool based on the EU(7)-PIM and EURO-FORTA criteria addresses the need for more efficient identification of DRPs. It can be applied to identify PIMs and geriatric prescribing problems in different health care settings, and also in a context of little clinical information available.

Keywords: Estonia; clinical decision support tool; drug related problems; multi-morbidity; older adults; polypharmacy; potentially inappropriate medications.