Trial reportJournal of general internal medicine2023
Medication Review and Enhanced Information Transfer at Discharge of Older Patients with Polypharmacy: a Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial in Swiss Hospitals.
Trial report in Journal of general internal medicine, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Patient Engagement Interventions to Improve Medication Management of Older Patients Across Transitions of Care: A Mixed Methods Systematic Review.Journal of clinical nursing · 2026Pooled it
- Interventions to improve the appropriate use of polypharmacy for older people.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Association between polypharmacy at the emergency department and long-term mortality in critically ill older patients receiving mechanical ventilation: a single-center retrospective cohort study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Digital Health Technologies and Standardized Protocols for Patient Safety in Hospital-Based Settings: A Scoping Review.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Review
- Prevalence of potentially inappropriate medication use and its association with hospitalization among older adults with chronic disease in the Amhara region, Ethiopia: a multicenter prospective cohort study.Therapeutic advances in drug safety · 2026Article
- Measuring Quality of Life in Deprescribing Trials: A Scoping Review.Drugs & aging · 2024Article
- Patterns of inappropriate prescribing and clinical characteristics in patients at admission to an acute care of the elderly unit.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2024Observational
- Current Landscape and Future Directions of Deprescribing and Polypharmacy Practices in Jordan.Medical principles and practice : international journal of the Kuwait University, Health Science Centre · 2024Review
- Assessment of potentially inappropriate medication use among geriatric outpatients in the Slovak Republic.BMC geriatrics · 2023Article
- Medication prescribing checklists and their impact on patient safety: A scoping review.Journal of the American Pharmacists Association : JAPhAArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMedication safety in patients with polypharmacy at transitions of care is a focus of the current Third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge. Medication review and communication between health care professionals are key targets to reduce medication-related harm.
objectiveTo study whether a hospital discharge intervention combining medication review with enhanced information transfer between hospital and primary care physicians can delay hospital readmission and impact health care utilization or other health-related outcomes of older inpatients with polypharmacy.
designCluster-randomized controlled trial in 21 Swiss hospitals between January 2019 and September 2020, with 6 months follow-up.
participantsSixty-eight senior physicians and their blinded junior physicians included 609 patients ≥ 60 years taking ≥ 5 drugs.
interventionsParticipating hospitals were randomized to either integrate a checklist-guided medication review and communication stimulus into their discharge processes, or follow usual discharge routines. MAIN MEASURES: Primary outcome was time-to-first-readmission to any hospital within 6 months, analyzed using a shared frailty model. Secondary outcomes covered readmission rates, emergency department visits, other medical consultations, mortality, drug numbers, proportions of patients with potentially inappropriate medication, and the patients' quality of life. KEY
resultsAt admission, 609 patients (mean age 77.5 (SD 8.6) years, 49.4% female) took a mean of 9.6 (4.2) drugs per patient. Time-to-first-readmission did not differ significantly between study arms (adjusted hazard ratio 1.14 (intervention vs. control arm), 95% CI [0.75-1.71], p = 0.54), nor did the 30-day hospital readmission rates (6.7% [3.3-10.1%] vs. 7.0% [3.6-10.3%]). Overall, there were no clinically relevant differences between study arms at 1, 3, and 6 months after discharge.
conclusionsThe combination of a structured medication review with enhanced information transfer neither delayed hospital readmission nor improved other health-related outcomes of older inpatients with polypharmacy. Our results may help researchers in balancing practicality versus stringency of similar hospital discharge interventions. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN18427377, https://doi.org/10.1186/ISRCTN18427377.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.