Center for Technology and Aging announces grants to improve medication use in older adults

The Center for Technology and Aging today announced grants to five organizations for projects that promise to help improve medication use in older adults with chronic health conditions. Each project involves the use of one or more technologies in a coordinated effort with patients, families and caregivers -- such as pharmacists, home health agency staff, and physicians -- to help improve the independence of older adults as well as to avoid medication-related issues that potentially result in harm, hospitalization or higher health care costs.

"These projects will help broaden the adoption of important technologies that make a huge difference in the quality of life for older adults who rely on medications to manage chronic conditions," said David Lindeman, PhD, director of the Center for Technology and Aging. "The numbers are surprising -- but helping older adults use medications appropriately could save the nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year." Over 90% of older adults use one or more medications per week, over 40% take five or more medications, and 12% use 10 or more medications per week.

Medication optimization refers to a wide variety of technologies designed to help manage medication information, dispensing, adherence and tracking. The grantees, their technologies, and programs are:

-- Caring Choices (www.caring-choices.org) - The Philips Medication Dispensing Service technology for medication adherence management will be introduced to four home health and senior living organizations in four rural and urban areas of California. -- Veterans Administration of Central California Health Care System CIMS© software; Assurance Pharmaceutical Care System©), and spoken format technology for culturally appropriate medication therapy management of Cambodian-American older adults. -- American Society of Consultant Pharmacists Foundation (www.ascpfoundation.org) - Pharmacists will use Monitor-Rx, a web-based patient medication assessment tool, to optimize the medication regimens of older adults seen in Irvine, CA.

Each organization plans to reach between 100 and 200 individuals and has established measurable improvement goals, such as: increased medication compliance, enhanced quality of life, fewer hospitalizations or emergency room visits, documented cost savings, or more efficient provider practice patterns.

"One of the Center's goals is to assure that funded projects aren't 'one and done,' but are designed to be replicated," said Lindeman. "Each grantee has identified ways to make sure their project can continue beyond the one-year grant period, can be broadly adopted by others, and is integrated within our long-term care system."

The five grants total $477,000 and range from $92,000 to $100,000. The grantees are supplementing grant funding with a total of over $520,000 in matching funds.