Low-value Care

When the best prescription is deprescribing

Abstract: For the past year, Kaiser Permanente has collaborated with the Lown Institute, a nonprofit organization that sheds light on the harms that can result from polypharmacy. Maisha Draves and Lynn Deguzman have had the privilege of sharing our organization’s successes with deprescribing, which has helped inform a pivotal report, Medication Overload: America’s Other Drug Problem, and a new national action plan to address the issue.

Publication: Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy

Date Published: January 29, 2020

Author(s): Maisha Draves and Lynn Deguzman

Publication: Kaiser Permanente Institute for Health Policy

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To eliminate medication overload, serious cultural, educational, and policy changes are needed. This action plan offers recommendations for policymakers, health care institutions, clinicians, and patients across five key categories to reduce harm from multiple medication use. Suggested Citation: Eliminating medication overload: A national action plan. Working Group on Medication Overload. Brookline, MA: The Lown Institute, 2020. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46241/LI.YLBW4885

Pharmaceutical marketing is a significant factor in the growing public health crisis of medication overload, which puts millions of older adults at risk of preventable harm and premature death. This issue brief provides recommendations to reduce pharmaceutical industry influence by limiting pharma sales rep visits to clinicians and direct-to-consumer advertising.

This issue brief provides recommendations for clinical practice guidelines and electronic health records that would give clinicians the information they need to appropriately prescribe and deprescribe.