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Prescribing medications for your older adult patients

December 1, 2015

When you prescribe a new medication to adults ages 65 and older, please keep in mind that certain medications have a greater potential for side effects. Patients in this age group are twice as likely as those younger than 65 to experience adverse drug events — and almost seven times as likely to be hospitalized from them.

Keep in mind the following when potentially prescribing these medications:

  • High-risk medications. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) developed the High Risk Medication (HRM) list through its HEDIS®* program. The Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) has adapted and endorsed NCQA?s HRM measure. Working alongside the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to improve the quality of health care, PQA maintains a list of medications considered to be high-risk in older adults. This list is based on the ?Beer?s Criteria? from the American Geriatrics Society standard list for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults. CMS measures the number of Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO members ages 65 and older who are receiving HRMs from the list. Using this information, CMS grades each health plan?s quality of care through its Stars program.
  • Adverse drug events. Through the Beer?s Criteria, HRMs have been proven to put older patients at a higher risk for adverse drug events. For example, medications such as zolpidem, amitriptyline, estrogens, and glyburide place patients at a higher risk for drug-related toxicities and increased risk for falls and fractures. Looking at the criteria, we have an opportunity to minimize the use of these and other medications deemed high-risk.

There is an even greater risk when a patient is on more than one medication considered an HRM. Careful and appropriate use of drugs in the senior population is a critical quality-of-care issue. For these reasons we suggest that you use caution when prescribing one or more drugs on the list to patients ages 65 and older.

View the complete list of HRMs here. Look for more information about HRMs in the January 2016 edition of Partners in Health UpdateSM.

*The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) is an NCQA tool used by more than 90 percent of U.S. health plans to measure performance on important dimensions of care.

Stars is a program developed by CMS to measure quality health care. Ratings are published annually to help educate consumers prior to enrollment decisions.


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