Unlocking Deprescribing Potential in Nursing Homes: Insights from a Focus Group Study with Healthcare Professionals.

Background: The nursing home population is characterized by multimorbidity and disabilities, which often result in extensive prescription of medication and subsequent polypharmacy. Deprescribing, a planned and supervised process of dose reduction or total cessation of medication, is a solution to combat this.

Objective: This study aimed to identify barriers and enablers of deprescribing as experienced by nursing home physicians (NHPs) and collaborating pharmacists in the specific nursing home setting.

The impact of polypharmacy on 30-day COVID-related mortality in nursing home residents: a multicenter retrospective cohort study.

Purpose: Both the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease and polypharmacy pose a serious threat to nursing home (NH) residents. This study aimed to assess the impact of polypharmacy on 30-day COVID-related mortality in NH residents with COVID-19.

Methods: Multicenter retrospective cohort study including NH residents from 15 NHs in the Netherlands.

How to select a best-value biological medicine? A practical model to support hospital pharmacists.

Purpose: With the growing availability of biosimilars on the global market, clinicians and pharmacists have multiple off-patent biological products to choose from. Besides the competitiveness of the product's price, other criteria should be considered when selecting a best-value biological. This article aims to provide a model to facilitate transparent best-value biological selection in the off-patent biological medicines segment.

Deprescribing Statins and Proton Pump Inhibitors in Nursing Home Residents; a Pragmatic Exploratory Study.

Introduction: Polypharmacy is common in the frail nursing home population and associated with an increased risk of adverse events, unplanned hospitalizations, and increased all-cause mortality. Deprescribing using a deprescribing algorithm might reduce unnecessary polypharmacy. This exploratory study was performed to determine the effect of this implicit deprescribing algorithm in deprescribing statins and proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) in nursing home residents.

Rational selection of inhalation devices in the treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease by means of the System of Objectified Judgement Analysis (SOJA).

Objectives: The large number of available medicines and devices makes it almost impossible to have sufficient knowledge of each individual medicine and device, especially for general practitioners. This may lead to suboptimal treatment, more exacerbations, hospitalisations and higher treatment costs. Reducing the number of medicines and devices, based on rational criteria, allows physicians and pharmacists to build experience with a more limited set of medicines and to standardise the inhalation instructions.