Safe Deprescription in Older Adults
MedSafer is an electronic deprescribing tool that could help prescribers (nurse practitioners and physicians) and pharmacists through the process of safe and successful medication deprescription in older adults.
MedSafer is an electronic deprescribing tool that could help prescribers (nurse practitioners and physicians) and pharmacists through the process of safe and successful medication deprescription in older adults.
MedSafer features evidence-based and tested criteria for identifying deprescribing opportunities which are derived from current research and established scientific guidelines. MedSafer provides information on why a medication might be a target for deprescription and how to safely deprescribe it. Read more.
The software was developed and validated by Canadian experts in internal medicine, geriatrics, palliative care, nursing and pharmacy and has been proven to improve deprescribing in randomized controlled trials.
A resident’s medications, comorbidities, select laboratory values* and a measure of prognosis* are considered by MedSafer to generate an individualized report of "deprescribing opportunities" for the clinical team to consider. Read more.
Opportunities are prioritized based on potential for harm and ease of discontinuation. When necessary, instructions for tapering medications are provided, as well as links to supporting evidence and, when available, resident and family empowerment brochures to facilitate shared decision making.
MedSafer is built on cloud-based, user-friendly technology that runs on your current tablet or computer; no hardware or equipment investment is required for end users.
MedSafer is fast, effective, and safe at facilitating deprescribing – there’s no manual data entry within supported EHRs.
Integration between EHRs like PointClickCare and MedSafer provides greater ease of use and efficient workflows for long-term care home staff, prescribers, and pharmacists. Current and new resident profiles automatically sync* from PointClickCare to MedSafer, allowing users to easily receive a report on deprescribing opportunities. Read more.
A PDF report can be automatically generated and sent to the resident’s file when a medication change has occurred.
The prevalence of polypharmacy (the use of 5 or more medications) has dramatically increased since the 2000s, with at least half of older adults meeting this definition. Polypharmacy is the number one identifiable risk factor for adverse drug events (ADEs), which are responsible for 27,000 hospital admissions annually in Canada. Since older adults living in residential care or living with frailty are at highest risk of excessive polypharmacy, they are also at highest risk for potential ADEs.
Minimizing medication overload from polypharmacy is challenging. Patients with multiple medical conditions may legitimately require medications for each condition. Nonetheless, with time, a proportion of these medications eventually become unnecessary, inappropriate or the harms outweighs the potential benefits. Deprescribing via the identification and discontinuation of unnecessary or potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) is a solution to medication overload from polypharmacy and reducing the risk of related ADEs.
Conceived in 2012 and in development since 2016, MedSafer leverages the expertise of clinician researchers with a strong scientific and clinical background in Geriatric Medicine, Internal Medicine, and Geriatric Pharmacotherapy to facilitate safer prescribing to older adults. Proven effective in randomized trials involving approximately 6,000 older adults with polypharmacy, MedSafer can serve as a valuable cognitive aid to identify patients who could benefit from deprescribing in a fast, efficient, and safe manner.