Effect of Systematic Medication Review in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Orthopedic Department

December 13, 2010 updated by: Aarhus University Hospital

The Effect of Systematic Medication Review in Elderly Patients Admitted to an Orthopedic Department.

Elderly patients have a higher risk of experiencing adverse drug events due to an age related increase in morbidity and medication use. Inappropriate or wrong medication use among elderly patients acutely admitted to hospitals is assumed to result in earlier contact to general practitioner, emergency departments and re-admissions if not corrected during hospital admission. It is therefore our hypothesis that a systematic medication review conducted by pharmacists and physicians specialized in pharmacology will increase time to first unscheduled physician contact (general practitioner, emergency departments, ambulatory care and re-admissions) after discharge from hospital from an average of 21days to 25 days. Further, the following secondary outcome parameters will be measured at discharge and within 3-month follow-up:

  • length of in-hospital stay
  • number of contacts to general practitioner 30 days after discharge, that resulted in medication changes
  • number of re-admissions at 3-month
  • number of death at 3-month
  • number of contact to primary health care at 3-month
  • patients self-experienced quality of health(EQ-5D) 3-month

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

108

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • Denmark
    • Central Denmark Region
      • Randers, Central Denmark Region, Denmark, 8900
        • Regional Hospital, Randers

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

65 years and older (Older Adult)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • age 65 years or older
  • expected admission time of more than 24 hours
  • acute admission

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Psychotic patients
  • Moribund patients
  • Suicidal patients

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Prevention
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Other: Intervention
Systematic medication review
Other: Systematic medication review and advisory notes
Within 24 hours of admission a pharmacist retrieve medication histories from patients included in the intervention group. Medication histories will be obtained from - medical records, medication charts, patients electronical medication profile, interview with patients and if necessary contact to the patients general practitioner. The obtained medication history will be discussed with a physician specialized in pharmacology and an advisory note with suggested changes to the patients medication is added to the medical record. The orthopedic physicians are not obliged to follow the suggested changes

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Time to first unscheduled physician contact(general practitioner,emergency department, ambulatory care or re-admission to hospital) after discharge from the Orthopaedic Department
Time Frame: January 2010
January 2010

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Time Frame
Admission time
Time Frame: October 2009
October 2009

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

Aarhus University Hospital

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Nielsen Lars Peter, Assoc. Prof., Aarhus University Hospital, Denmark

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start

April 1, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

February 1, 2010

Study Completion (Actual)

April 1, 2010

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

August 20, 2008

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

August 20, 2008

First Posted (Estimate)

August 21, 2008

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Estimate)

December 14, 2010

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 13, 2010

Last Verified

December 1, 2010

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Other Study ID Numbers

  • Klinfarm

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

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