August 23, 2024
The concept of deprescribing has gained traction in recent years, and the Drive to Deprescribe (D2D) program takes the wheel with a new course, Design Your Deprescribing Intervention, which launched earlier this month. “Our audience was craving more documents, materials, and information to bring back to their teams, so we are putting together several modules with easy-to-implement practice pearls and other resources,” says Jennifer Pruskowski, PharmD, MS, BCPS, BCGP, CPE, the course director. She adds, “Everyone who works in the nursing home has a great opportunity to deprescribe or support such efforts, and we want to support the entire team.”
The new course is expert-led and peer-reviewed and provides essential strategies and practical tools for optimizing medication use, safe reduction of polypharmacy, and enhancing patient safety in the post-acute and long-term care (PALTC) setting. This effort involves setting the foundation for deprescribing and modules devoted to various drug classes. “All the information out there can be overwhelming, so we drill down to the basics and share key concepts and insights with people,” says Dr. Pruskowski.
Dr. Pruskowski explains that the modules are geared toward nursing homes and designed to provide clinicians and their teams with the skills necessary to overcome the barriers to deprescribing. Among these challenges, she notes, is that practitioners typically aren’t educated about how to discuss deprescribing with patients and families. “The next planned course module will focus on how to discuss deprescribing with patients and families,” she says. Regarding this and other challenges, she adds that the modules provide support from interdisciplinary experts on a multitude of levels.
Clearly, describing the patient benefits of deprescribing significantly contributes to outcomes and quality of life. Polypharmacy in older adults is associated with an increased risk of falls, adverse drug events, hospital admissions, and even death. Deprescribing can have a positive impact on staff as well. Dr. Pruskowski says, “Unfortunately, there’s been very little literature around this, but we see it anecdotally.” However, there are studies that show the time involved in medication administration and management and the costs involved, suggesting that reducing the time involved in this work gives nurses and others more time for bedside care.
While there has been an understanding of the need to address polypharmacy and inappropriate prescribing in the past, there has been a lack of clear evidence-based guidance about how to approach deprescribing. The D2D initiative helps fill this gap and gives practitioners tools, resources, practice pearls, and more they can implement and share. Dr. Pruskowski says, “I wanted these modules to be something that I wish I’d had back when I was first starting out in deprescribing.”
Since May 2021, PALTmed and the American Society of Consultant Pharmacists (ASCP) have been hosting interactive webinars, producing podcasts, and developing resources to help prescribers, pharmacists, DONs, CNOs, CMOs, and CEOs optimize medication use in the long-term care setting. These activities are key components of the D2D initiative, which aims to reduce polypharmacy and enhance patient care.
Click here for more information about the new course. You can find information about the D2D initiative here.