Polypharmacy in the elderly is known to increase the risk of adverse drug events. Currently, the impact of operational improvements according to polypharmacy-related guidelines is unknown. Additionally, many patients were not treated by the polypharmacy task force at our hospital. We investigated the changes in the number of patients and prescription suggestions to evaluate the effect of operational improvements according to the polypharmacy-related guidelines, including changes in screening methods and task shifting/sharing with pharmacists in charge of hospital wards. As a result, the number of patients for whom prescription suggestions were made increased, and the number of prescription suggestions based on physical function assessments by multiple professions increased. The results suggest that the patients targeted for multidisciplinary patient assessment and prescription optimization activities can be expanded by improving the tasks related to screening based on physical function assessments and through strengthening collaboration with the pharmacists in charge of hospital wards.
