Efforts for Prescription Optimization by the Polypharmacy Team

Abstract

At Iizuka Hospital, we organized a polypharmacy team to engage in multidisciplinary collaboration and we began interventions aimed at prescription optimization for inpatients. During the interventions, we confirmed the patient’s willingness for pharmacotherapy. After that, we evaluated the merits and demerits of continuation or discontinuation of the drugs considering the patient’s condition, life prognosis, and time to benefit. In this study, we considered the investigated results of 100 patients who experienced intervention by the polypharmacy team.

Of the 49 patients who reduced their medications after the polypharmacy team

intervened, the most common reason for medicine reduction was long-term administration, and the most common pharmacological category of medicine reduction was gastrointestinal medication. The polypharmacy team at Iizuka Hospital intervenes for the Departments of General Internal Medicine, Transitional and Palliative Care, and Orthopedic Surgery, and we hope polypharmacy team interventions will be expanded to more departments to optimize prescribing in the future.