A new study shows elderly men and women have more to worry about than getting exercise and avoiding falls, adults that use home health care aids may be at a higher risk for unsafe medications. In fact, nearly 40 percent of seniors receiving medical care from a home health agency are taking at least one prescription medication that is considered potentially inappropriate to seniors, a new study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine has revealed.
The reason behind the problem
“Elderly patients receiving home health care are usually prescribed medications by a variety of physicians, and it’s a great challenge for home health care nurses to deal with prescriptions from many sources,” says Dr. Yuhua Bao, assistant professor of public health at Weill Cornell Medical College.
However, Bao says there is a way to alter these statistics. “Having a medical professional enter an elderly patient’s home is an opportunity to do a proper medication review and reconciliation,” Dr. Bao explains.
The numbers
The study looked at data from the National Home and Hospice Care Survey and compared the medications of patient’s against a list of 77 medications that are considered unsafe for elderly people.
At least 38 percent of seniors had one unsafe drug in their medical routine, and patients taking 15 or more medications were five to six times as likely to be prescribed unsafe meds.
The solution
“In our fragmented health care system, we generally don’t have an electronic reference for a patient that lists all medications from different physicians, and there isn’t a readily available means for professionals to share essential information. Enhanced physician communication with home health care nurses may help to address the problem, as well as better communication among physicians.”
Bao believes incentives should be put in place to encourage home health workers to improve quality of care. Physicians, nurses, home health aids and family members should all be on the same page when it comes to a senior’s health.
