Award Date: 2018

Project Lead(s): Emily McDonald, Physician, and Todd Lee, Physician

Project Title: MedSafer e-Care: an automated deprescribing solution for community-dwelling older adults living with polypharmacy

What is the issue?

Many older adults take multiple medications. Some of these drugs may no longer be required. Others may have harmful effects for seniors. The process of safely reducing or stopping medications is called deprescribing. MedSafer is a computer software program that allows doctors, pharmacists, and nurse practitioners to deprescribe medications used by older adults.  

What did we do?

Our main goal was to link MedSafer with an electronic health records platform called MED e-Care. We developed a tool called an application programming interface (API) to serve as the link and allow us to provide clinicians with automated deprescribing reports patients.   

What did we find?

We successfully developed, piloted, and tested the MedSafer API. We linked it with the MED e-care platform used by OMNI Health Care’s long-term care homes in Ontario. Clinicians at five seniors’ residences accessed deprescribing reports. The reports identified opportunities for deprescribing, taking residents’ health histories and their current medications into account. Clinicians viewed reports on a computer or printed them out, depending on their preferences.