Improved Prescribing for Older Nursing Home Patients

Summary

Research aim:

To investigate the effect of training health care professionals in medication assessments on the medication use of nursing home residents with a limited life expectancy (\< 1.5-2 years).

The core of the training is to tailor medication use to (palliative) treatment goals of nursing home residents.

Design:

A cluster randomized controlled trial on long term care wards in nursing homes, with the nursing home care organisations as unit of randomisation. The investigators intent to include 6 organisations and 450 nursing home patients. The research starts in september and lasts 1 year and 3 months. Eligible patients are nursing home patients of 65 years and older with a limited life expectancy (\< 1.5-2 year) of long term care wards.

Intervention:

The intervention includes a method in which healthcare professionals (medical practitioner, pharmacist and care worker) are trained to tailor medication to the (palliative) treatment goals of nursing home patients with a limited life expectancy. The training consists of 2 components: 1) medication assessment, and 2) advance care planning (ACP). In the intervention group, healthcare professionals receive the training in combination with supporting tools and educational materials, in the control group care continues as normal. The allocation ratio for control and intervention groups is 1:1. A process evaluation will take place simultaneously with the intervention study. Data collection takes place before the start of the intervention (T0), after 6 months (T1) and after 12 months (T2).

Outcome measures:

The primary outcome measure is potential under- and over-treatment with medication. The secondary outcome measure is experienced involvement in decision-making (measured with a short questionnaire based on the revised PATD (patients' attitude towards deprescribing)). Tertiary outcome measures are: quality of life, deaths, falls, hospital admissions/acute first aid referrals and pain.

Discussion:

The intervention is expected to result in a decrease in chronic and preventive medication prescriptions, an increase in medication for symptom treatment and more involvement (and satisfaction) of the nursing home resident in decision-making, without adverse effects.

Conditions

• Nursing Home Residents
• Older People
• Prescribing
• Advance Care Planning
• Medication Reviews
• Decision Making
• Prescribing Practices

Interventions

COMBINATION_PRODUCT

Systematic multidisciplinary medication review + ACP (SMMR+)

The intervention is a training in medication assessment. The goal is to align prescription with the treatment goals of nursing home patients which are set in advance care planning conversations. The training consists of 2 components: 1. Medication assessment with the use of the ReNeWAL criteria (adjusted STOPP/START criteria, tailored to nursing home patients with a limited life expectancy) 2. Advance care planning component. Discussing medication in line with the treatment goals set in advance care planning conversations. Healthcare professionals receive the training in combination with supporting tools (pocket card) and educational material (the ReNeWAL criteria and PowerPoint slides of the training if requested). Also, intervision moments are planned.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• ZonMw: The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development

  collaborator OTHER

• Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Martin Smalbrugge, Prof · Amsterdam UMC, location VUmc, departement Medicine for Older People

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

65 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2024-09-10

Primary Completion

2025-12-01

Completion

2025-12-01

Countries

• Netherlands

Study Locations