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    INFORMATION FOR

    Research

    Our group conducts patient-oriented research within the Clinical Epidemiology and Research Center at the Veterans Affairs Health Care System in West Haven, Connecticut. We aim to recruit older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Below are the two areas for our clinical research:

    Background
    One in three Americans 65 and older take five or more medications. As the number of medications increase, so does the risk of having a prescribing problem (i.e. drug interaction, side effect). One in two of older adults take a medication that is considered a potentially inappropriate medication.

    Figure 1. Niehoff, et al. Pharmacotherapy 2016.

    Research
    Our group consists of an interdisciplinary team which includes expertise in biomedical informatics, web and systems design, geriatric medicine, and geriatric pharmacy. The aim of our work is to decrease potentially inappropriate medications and to identify medication regimens that may to too complex for the patients to manage. To do this, we created the Tool to Reduce Inappropriate Medications (TRIM). It consists of two web-based programs.

    Data Extraction Program
    This program extracts age, chronic conditions and medications from the electronic health record (EHR) in order to identify high-risk patients and provide data inputs for the second application.

    Medication Evaluation Program
    The second application is a medication evaluation program consisting of three components.

    1. Web interface for chart review and telephone assessment of health and psychosocial status variables
    2. Clinical algorithms providing an automated systematic evaluation of appropriateness using inputs from the EHR-extracted data and health and psychosocial status variables
    3. Patient-specific medication management feedback report which is generated for the clinician

    Document Links

    TRIM Clinical Algorithms

    Example Clinician Feedback Report

    Related Publications

    Niehoff KM, Rajeevan N, Charpentier P, Miler PL, Goldstein MK, Fried TR. Development of the Tool to Reduce Inappropriate Medications (TRIM): A Clinical Decision Support System to Improve Medication Prescribing for Older Adults. Pharmacotherapy, 2016. PMID: 27041466

    Fried TR, Niehoff KM, Tija J, Redeker N, Goldstein MK. A Delphi process to address medication appropriateness for older persons with multiple chronic conditions. BMC Geriatr. 2016;6(1):67. PMID: 26979576