Interventions that bridge care transitions most likely to impact medication continuity in older adults
FRIDAY, Feb. 28, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Interventions that bridge care transitions have the greatest impact on older adults’ medication continuity, according to a review published online Feb. 20 in Age and Ageing.
Justine Tomlinson, from the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, and colleagues conducted a systematic literature review to identify randomized controlled trials evaluating interventions delivered during a hospital stay or after a recent discharge to support medication continuity in older patients.
Based on 24 identified studies (with 17,664 participants), the researchers found that interventions that bridged the transition for up to 90 days were more likely to support successful transitions. Self-management activities (relative risk [RR], 0.81), telephone follow-up (RR, 0.84), and medication reconciliation (RR, 0.88) were statistically associated with reduced hospital readmissions in the meta-analysis.
“Our results suggest that interventions that bridge the care transition best support older patients’ medication continuity and have the greatest impact on reducing hospital readmission,” the authors write.
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