Helping Older Adults Manage Meds After Hospital Reduces Readmission: Study

A study in Age and Aging found that helping older people manage their prescribed medications after they leave the hospital lowers the risk of a repeat visit, according to U.S. News & World Report . U.K. researchers reviewed 24 studies that included more than 17,500 hospitalized seniors, and subjects were less likely to be rehospitalized if they had help with their medication for three months after leaving the hospital. Another strategy involved a health professional, like a pharmacist, reviewing previous prescriptions from a person's doctor and drugs prescribed at the hospital in order to identify any omissions or conflicts. The University of Bradford's Justine Tomlinson said patients or caregivers should be involved in the process. "The medicine-related harm that older patients are exposed to on discharge is serious and avoidable, yet they often feel they have to accept these problems as a fact of life as they get older," she explained. "Our research shows that it doesn't have to be that way."