Medication Safety for Older Adults

Our research on medication safety blends with advocacy as we partner with members of the community, caregivers, medical practitioners and others to promote deprescribing and the safety of older adults.

Team Alice

Medications sometimes do more harm than good, especially for older adults. Alice Brennan was an independent, energetic older adult in our community who died due to unsafe prescribing. Her providers failed to recognize that many of her symptoms (such as confusion and falls) were actually medication side effects and added more medications instead of deprescribing the offending ones. Sadly, this is a common occurrence. To save other older adults from medication harm, researchers at PCRI teamed up with an interdisciplinary roster of staff and faculty across UB and partnered with Alice’s daughter to form Team Alice.

Team Alice conducts and disseminates interdisciplinary research aimed at protecting older adults from harm due to medications across the continuum of care. This includes:

Patient-driven deprescribing: partnering with patients and their caregivers to empower them with knowledge, skills and tools to promote self-advocacy
System-driven deprescribing: developing effective team-based models of practice
System transformation: working with practitioners, health care organizations, Health Information Exchanges (HIEs), and health plans to ensure safe use of medications across the health care system

To accomplish its mission, Team Alice formed two community partnerships with which it designs and conducts research and advocacy:

Elder Voices: a community stakeholder group of older adults and caregivers who create educational interventions and spearhead patient-led deprescribing initiatives
Western New York Deprescribing Partnership: a community group including physicians, pharmacists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, health plan representatives, senior service organizations and patient advocates with interest in medication safety and deprescribing

Current Research Projects

Advancing Geriatrics Infrastructure & Network Growth (AGING) Initiative
9/27/23
Using novel analytic methods with systemwide Health Information Exchange (HIE) data, we will explore new risk factors relevant to Multiple Chronic Conditions (MCCs) in older adults. This pilot study is also using a participatory patient-care partner approach to gain insight on MCC patient experiences and ensure the relevance of risk factors developed for future patient-provider interactions.
Community-Based Participatory Research for Reducing Medication Harm Among Retirees
9/27/23
This project works to translate known medication safety evidence into practice for frail elders through system-based interventions that address fragmentation through a variety of innovative strategies for providers to initiate deprescribing of inappropriate medications. Such a focus on patient- or caregiver-initiated deprescribing conversations with their doctors has never before been funded or attempted in the United States.
Patient-Driven Medication Safety Learning Laboratory in Care Transitions
1/14/25
This AHRQ-funded initiative aims to better understand barriers and facilitators to preventing, identifying, and resolving medication safety problems in transitions across levels of care within the healthcare system. We will utilize a combination of patient and caregiver surveys and interviews, workflow analyses, and insights from clinical data. Following data collection and synthesis, we will work with patients, providers, and staff from across the Erie County Medical Center (ECMC) and with the community advisory board to design prototype interventions to overcome medication safety problems for older adults during transitions of care.