Premier’s Deprescribing Program in Full Swing
The textbook defines deprescribing as “the process of tapering, withdrawing, discontinuing or stopping medicines to reduce potentially problematic polypharmacy, adverse drug effects and inappropriate or ineffective medicine use”.
Steve Colvin, a Premier nurse practitioner, notes that there is much more to deprescribing than what is defined in the three lines above. “Premier’s patients are almost universally individuals that have multiple chronic conditions and, before coming under Premier’s care, may have been seeing as many as 4 or 5 separate medical specialists. As a result, it is not unusual for patients to come to us and our partner facilities with twenty or more different prescriptions. And, particularly for our skilled nursing patients that have recently been hospitalized, there is the challenge of addressing the medications that were stopped or started due to the medico-pharmacological care needs that resulted in their hospitalization.”
Jamie Smith, a practicing nurse practitioner and Premier’s Chief Education and Compliance Officer, notes that “some patients and their family members become hyper-focused on some of the medications”. I often hear that we “just can’t take mom or dad off a medication because it was initially prescribed by her community primary care clinician and they said it would be needed indefinitely.” “In these situations, Premier clinicians are trained to spend the extra time necessary to explain why medications are being adjusted to the patient and members of the interdisciplinary care team.”
Barb Frye, Premier’s Chief Clinical Officer and former continuing care retirement community director of nursing, points out that passing medications to patients multiple times every day is a time-consuming process for the staff of Premier’s partner eldercare centers. “The eldercare industry is experiencing an unprecedented shortage of qualified staff to perform functions like passing medications. Premier’s focus on avoiding adverse medication interactions and the deprescribing of unnecessary medications is a big benefit to our colleagues in care.”
Holly Roy, Premier’s Chief Operating Officer notes “Premier’s deprescribing initiatives don’t happen by accident. As part of our onboarding process with clinicians, we make it clear that medication review needs to be an ongoing process that includes quality communication with patients, their families, and the staff in our partner centers. In addition, we regularly review the average number of medications, including as needed or PRN meds, with partner center leadership. Every month Premier clinicians taper or discontinue thousands of prescriptions that are no longer optimal for our patients' health and mental well-being.”
Premier’s Founder and CEO, Dr. Bradley Goad notes that “the stresses put on our patients, partner centers, and Premier clinicians at the height of the COVID pandemic brought the issue of optimal medication management under the spotlight. While I was proud that prescribing the right medications at the right time was already a pillar of the Premier practice culture, we also learned that it is an area where we must be permanently vigilant. Premier leadership and clinicians actively participated in The Society for Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine’s Drive to Deprescribe program, a nationwide initiative focused on having clinicians effectively review the medications that are being prescribed.”
If you would like to learn more about Premier, please visit our website at www.PremierGeriatric.com or call us at (800) 765-7130.
