Purpose: Polypharmacy is common in older adults, with almost 20% of older adults taking ≥10 medications. They are at great risk for adverse events related to potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs). Although evidence-based methods for deprescribing have been successful at reducing polypharmacy and improving quality of medication use, there are several challenges to implementing these methods on a large scale.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImplement Sci Commun
May 2022
Background: The adoption and sustainment of evidence-based practices (EBPs) is a challenge within many healthcare systems, especially in settings that have already strived but failed to achieve longer-term goals. The Veterans Affairs (VA) Maintaining Implementation through Dynamic Adaptations (MIDAS) Quality Enhancement Research Initiative (QUERI) program was funded as a series of trials to test multi-component implementation strategies to sustain optimal use of three EBPs: (1) a deprescribing approach intended to reduce potentially inappropriate polypharmacy; (2) appropriate dosing and drug selection of direct oral anticoagulants (DOACs); and (3) use of cognitive behavioral therapy as first-line treatment for insomnia before pharmacologic treatment. We describe the design and methods for a harmonized series of cluster-randomized control trials comparing two implementation strategies.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Peripheral vascular diseases have a significant impact on functional quality of life. Previous research has demonstrated the complex, limiting and costly economic implications of these conditions such as lower limb ulceration chronicity and ischaemic amputation. These complex, limb and life threatening conditions demand the development of novel interventions with objective research as part of that development.
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