Introduction
Thousands of medical interventions are performed each day in healthcare to improve the health status of our patients. The prescription of medication is an important intervention within the medical care for older patients [
1,
2]. The rising incidence of multimorbidity and consequently polypharmacy adds to the complexity of managing older patients in particular [
3]. Inadequate medication management and polypharmacy are important risk factors for adverse drug events and drug-drug interactions and frequently lead to hospital admissions and hospital readmissions and other undesirable consequences such as increased morbidity, decreased self-reliance and even death [
4‐
7].
The number of acute and medication related hospital admissions is increasing over the years due to the ageing population [
8]. In medication related hospital admissions two categories can be distinguished, namely primary admissions and readmissions. Less research is performed in the latter category. Both admissions and readmissions account for decreased quality of life and high healthcare costs [
9,
10].
Aim of the review
To give an overview on what is currently known about medication related hospital admissions, medication related hospital readmissions, their risk factors, and possible interventions which reduce medication related hospital readmissions.
Methods
Search strategy
We performed an overview of literature but not a systematic review. The single data source used was PubMed. We searched for articles with a set of MeSH terms and text words selected to cover articles on medication related admissions and medication related readmissions. The search was limited for articles published in English language. The search was performed in February 2017, with no limitations with regard to the publication date. We included articles that investigated the incidence of medication related admissions and medication related readmissions and their risk factors. We also included articles that investigated possible interventions which may reduce the rate of medication related readmissions. We selected studies that were performed in hospitals. We did not differentiate between hospital types for the performed studies. All study designs were allowed. The outcomes of the selected articles were dependant of the study. It was important that the outcome was related to the incidence of the medication related admissions and readmissions or their risk factors. Studies which investigated possible intervention to reduce the readmissions were also included.
We first selected articles based on the title. After the first selection two authors (AL and KH) independently assessed the articles for usability based on the abstract of the articles. Excluded were articles investigating an intervention or a treatment for a disease in which they had as a primary or secondary outcome the readmission rate. The quality of the different studies was not an exclusion criteria. When there was disagreement on in/exclusion of an article, a third reviewer was consulted and consensus was reached.
Discussion
The aim of this literature overview was to give an overview on what currently is known about medication related hospital admissions, medication related hospital readmissions, their risk factors, and possible interventions which reduce medication related hospital readmissions. The incidence of medication related hospital admissions shows a great variety and ranges between 0.5 and 19.3% and is dependant of the definition used in the different studies [
7,
10,
17‐
20,
22]. The incidence of medication related hospital readmissions has even a broader range, namely 0.09% up to 64.0% [
27‐
29]. The most important identified risk factors for medication related admissions or medication related readmissions are high risk medication, polypharmacy, therapy nonadherence, older age, comorbidities, renal disease, congestive heart failure, cognitive impairment and length of stay in the hospital [
7,
23‐
25,
27,
33,
36,
38‐
40,
42‐
44].
The most common medications associated with (potentially preventable) admissions are anticoagulants, antiplatelet drugs, vasodilators, psychotropic medications and diuretics [
7,
23,
33].
However all of the results show much heterogeneity between studies. The study designs and definitions used for medication related admissions and medication related readmissions are different between the studies.
In the included studies, different interventions are investigated such as the involvement of pharmacists in medication reviews during the admissions of patients, different education programs and transition-care interventions. Some studies show less medication related readmissions, however the results are controversial. Probably due to the different methods, study populations and interventions which are investigated. For example the involvement of pharmacist in medication reviews during an admission is different in the selected articles, however overall there is a possible benefit with regard to participation of a pharmacist, especially in patients with a high risk of medication related admissions. Beside the involvement of a pharmacist in the medication reviews during the admission, other studies investigated the value of the use of CDDS. As mentioned earlier previous studies have shown that the use of CDDS has an additional value for the manual medication review [
59,
61]. But the effect on the readmission rate is not known yet.
The limitation of this study is that the review was not systematic and the search was limited to the PubMED database. The aim of the study and the search were both broad, however we only performed one search. Afterwards it was possibly better to specify the aim and to convert the search for the more specific aim. With this search used for this review we found a lot of articles not related on this subject. Possibly we also missed articles on this subject because we only performed one search. The strength of this review is that this review gives an overview about a topic which is important in the daily care. Although there is a great variety in results, overall the studies show the importance to get more knowledge about this topic to prevent potential preventable unfavourable outcomes and high healthcare costs.
In the future we want to investigate the additional value of the CDSS in medication related hospital readmissions in people older than 60 years. Because there is a lack of a definition in the literature for a medication related admission and readmission, we have chosen to select unplanned admissions which are possible medication related. The Dutch guideline “Polypharmacy in the older patient” includes a trigger list that can be used to establish whether an admission is possibly medication related [
62]. The trigger list is mainly based on three studies namely the HARM-, IPCI- and Quadret, and presents the most frequent medication related problems which can lead to an admission [
7,
11,
63,
64].
Patients aged 60 years and older with an unplanned hospital admission will be included in the study if the unplanned hospital admission is assessed to be medication related according to the trigger list. Participants will be randomized in intervention or control group. In the control group care as usual will be continued. In the intervention group a medication check will be performed weekly using the CDSS. The generated alerts/recommendations will be sent to the general practitioner and/or home pharmacist. Follow-up will be one year.
With the assistance of the CDSS we aim at reducing the medication related readmissions from 20 to 15%.
Conclusion
The definition for both medication related hospital admissions and readmissions varies in different studies leading to a great incidence range. Several risk factors related to medication related hospital admissions and/or readmissions have been identified: high risk medication, polypharmacy, therapy nonadherence, older age, comorbidities, renal disease, congestive heart failure, cognitive impairment and length of stay in the hospital. Known interventions that could possibly lead to a decrease in medication related hospital readmissions are spare being the involvement of a pharmacist, education programs and transition-care interventions the most mentioned ones although controversial results have been reported. More research is needed to gather more information on this topic.
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