[Avoidable hospital drug prescription in the elderly. A review of the literature].
Elderly persons are particularly exposed to drug reactions, especially drug interactions subsequent to multiple prescriptions. It is also recognized that the drug risk is the leading hospital risk involving 1 to 10% of all hospitalized patients. An analysis of the avoidable nature of drug reactions leads to consideration of a sequence of 4 events leading to drug exposure: prescription, delivery, administration and compliance. Each event in this sequence corresponds to a distinct person: physician, pharmacist, nurse, patient. This suggests that the prevention of drug reactions in hospitalized elderly persons requires implementation of an "alert-causal attributability-avoidability-prevention" system by the healthcare teams where physicians, pharmacists, and nurses work in close coordination with the patient.
Lesourd
Fabien
F
Service Evaluation, Qualité, Accréditation, Sécurité Sanitaire, AP-HP, Paris, France.
Mathieu
Anne-Marie
AM
Ankri
Joël
J
Pibarot
Marie-Laure
ML
Henry
Olivier
O
Sebbane
Georges
G
Trivalle
Christophe
C
Demolis
Pierre
P
Davrinche
Philippe
P
Guillemot
Didier
D
D000368:Aged; D004347:Drug Interactions; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D019338:Polypharmacy