PRESS RELEASE: Millions of Older Americans Harmed by Too Many Medications
Lown Institute just released Eliminating Medication Overload: A National Action Plan. More
Eliminating Medication Overload: A National Action Plan
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 More
Medication Overload: Reduce Pharmaceutical Industry Influence
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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.
Medication Overload: Improve Information at the Point of Care
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. More
Medication Overload: Educate and Train Health Professionals
This issue brief recommends training health professionals to reduce medication overload, by incorporating information on geriatric care and deprescribing training into professional schools and continuing education. More
Medication Overload: Implement prescription checkups
To eliminate medication overload, we should implement “prescription checkups,” medication reviews that give patients and clinicians opportunities to deprescribe (discontinue medications or reduce doses) appropriately. This issue brief provides detail on the policy, research, and technological changes needed to successfully implement prescription checkups. More
Medication Overload: Raise Awareness
This issue brief provides recommendations for how to raise awareness among patients, clinicians, and the general public about the potential harms of multiple medication use. More
Most dietary supplements don’t do anything. Why do we spend $35 billion a year on them?
Every year, Americans spend something like $35 billion on vitamins, minerals, botanicals and various other substances that are touted as health-giving but mostly do nothing at all. Nothing at all! More
Prescription Checkup – it could save your life
Have you had a prescription checkup lately? If you are a senior or if you take two or more medicines, a review of the medicines you take should be a standard part of your care. As your health changes, for better and for worse, the medicines you need to stay healthy will change too. More
29,000 Cancers Overdiagnosed in Australia in a Single Year
Almost one in four cancers detected in men were overdiagnosed in 2012, according to our new research, published today in the Medical Journal of Australia. More
The Disturbing Rise in Benzodiazepine Prescriptions
Are the drugs helping to fuel the opioid crisis? More
Right Care Series in The Lancet
A global effort to assess the scope of overuse and underuse and expose these twin failings at the center of health strategies everywhere. More
Patients Want To Die At Home, But Home Hospice Care Can Be Tough On Families
According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, seven in 10 Americans say they would prefer to die at home. And that's the direction the health care system is moving, too, hoping to avoid unnecessary and expensive treatment at the end of life. More
How many of the “best” hospitals provide low-value cardiovascular screening?
A new study finds that even the "best" hospitals in the nation commonly offer unnecessary cardiovascular screening tests to wealthy patients. More
One in ten children receive low-value care, new study shows
Pediatric professional groups have known for years that certain tests and procedures are unnecessary and potentially harmful. Yet one in ten children receive low-value care, according to a recent study. More
Boston Globe features Lown medication overload project
The Boston Globe highlights the problem of medication overload and provides a sneak peek of the upcoming Lown action plan. More
A Machine-versus-Doctors Fixation Masks Important Questions about Artificial Intelligence
That idea that today we’d be basking in the fruits of ultra-personalized medicine was put forth by scientists who were promoting the Human Genome Project — a massive, publicly-funded international research effort. More
FDA Approves Drugs Faster Than Ever But Relies On Weaker Evidence, Researchers Find
The Food and Drug Administration has gotten faster at approving new prescription drugs over the past four decades, but the evidence it relies on in making those decisions is getting weaker, according to new research... More
Prescription drug overload: Critics fighting to curb an epidemic of medication side effects
Op-Ed: Using artificial intelligence to diagnose cancer could mean unnecessary treatments
Researchers at Google Health teamed up with academic medical centers in the United States and Britain to train an AI system using tens of thousands of mammograms. More