Low-value Care

Report Sounds Alarm on Medication Overload Among Older Americans

Abstract: Experts on aging are sounding the alarm about another U.S. drug crisis: Too many older adults taking too many medications. This trend is leading to a surge in adverse drug events (ADE) over the past two decades. The rate of emergency department visits by older adults for adverse drug events doubled between 2006 and 2014. That’s a problem as serious as the opioid crisis, but whose scope appears to remain virtually invisible to families, patients, policymakers and many clinicians, according to a recent report by the Lown Institute, a nonprofit think tank in Brookline, Mass.

Date Published: August 2, 2019

Author(s): Liz Seegert

Publication: Next Avenue

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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.