Low-value Care

Pharmacists Should Be Part of the Primary Care Team

Abstract: THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC has laid bare many of the flaws in our country's health care system, including a weak public health infrastructure, the terrible and persistent health and health care disparities experienced by people of color and other marginalized populations, our inability to nimbly redistribute vital equipment and human resources, the consequences of chronic underfunding of long-term care, and the utter absence of a functional collaboration between policy makers and the health care delivery system.

Publication: Ambulatory Care Management

Date Published: September 22, 2020

Author(s): Noah Nesin, MD, FAAFP

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To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use. Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885

Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.

This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe.