Design and Delivery of a Tailored Intervention to Implement Recommendations for Multimorbid Patients Receiving Polypharmacy into Primary Care Practices

Table 1

Summary of the current literature on interventions aiming at an improved management of polypharmacy as presented to the interviewees.

Recommendation/implementation objective	Interventions/intervention components	References
Reduce potentially inappropriate medication	(i) Involve pharmacists into medication checks; (ii) Multidisciplinary case conferences; (iii) Consultation of geriatricians before hospital discharge; (iv) Computer-assisted medication checks; (v) Training of patients on ADR and adherence; (vi) Training of doctors and nurses on ADR, guidelines, and alternative drugs	[20, 37–44]
Consequent use of medication lists	(i) Reminders (letters, phone calls, and “medication bags”) for patients to bring along their medication and medication/medication list; (ii) Training of patients on drug safety; (iii) Training of doctors on medication reconciliation; (iv) Delegate “Brown Bag Reviews” to HCAs; (v) Feedback to physicians on the accuracy of the medication lists in their practice; (vi) Web portal, where patients could enter their medication and receive emails reminding them to update their medication list. Physician received emails if patients made changes; (vii) Medication reconciliation by pharmacists using various sources (e.g., prescription data or discharge letters)	[45–49]
Structured medication counselling	(i) Feedback reports to physicians on patients’ satisfaction with information about medicine; (ii) Electronic messages sent to patients 10 days after medication alterations with questions about adherence and ADR; (iii) Individualized patient information leaflets about their medication	[15, 37, 50]

ADR = adverse drug reactions, HCA = health care assistant.