Medication Interaction Alert for Elderly People...Providing multi-pharmaceutical management services to residents of long-term care facilities
Apr 08, 2025
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According to the National Health Insurance Service, the number of patients who took more than 10 drugs for more than 60 days among those with one chronic disease jumped from 840,000 in 2019 to 1.288 million in 2023. In addition, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 64.2% of senior citizens aged 75 or older in Korea took more than five drugs as of 2021. This is significantly higher than the OECD average of 48.6%, and it is pointed out that side effects from drug interactions are of concern. In particular, in the case of the elderly with weak physical functions, drug absorption, metabolism, and excretion ability are reduced, making them sensitive to interactions between drugs and more side effects may occur, so proper management is necessary.
In fact, the Health Insurance Corporation announced in 2019 'In the study data on drug prescription status and underlying disease and prognosis of drug users, the group who took more than five drugs had an 18% higher risk of hospitalization and a 25% higher risk of death than the control group who took less than four drugs. The group with more than 11 medications had a 45% risk of hospitalization and 54% risk of death compared to the group with less than two.
Therefore, it is necessary to readjust the administration plan in consideration of the interaction of drugs.
In particular, long-term care facility recipients are prescribed more drugs than home care recipients, and the state's drug use rate is also higher, raising concerns.
In 2023, the Korea Institute of Health Insurance analyzed the drug use of 187,077 long-term care recipients and 704,109 home care recipients who entered the facility, and found that facility recipients were prescribed 11.47 drugs with 7.22 ingredients on average per day. Home care recipients were prescribed 7.93 medicines with an average of 5.33 ingredients per day. The rate of long-term use of drugs for the central nervous system that require attention was also 76.7% of facility recipients, which was higher than that of home care recipients (56.6%).
In this regard, the National Health Insurance Service will comprehensively check the use of patients who use various types of drugs to residents of long-term care facilities starting this month and adjust or change the amount as necessary to reduce side effectsProvide pharmaceutical management services'. The corporation dispatched an advisory pharmacist to the facility to identify the list of drugs taken by the subject and request a doctor to adjust the prescription if necessary through evaluation and consultation. After that, the contract doctor of the facility reviews the request and decides whether to take measures such as removing or changing the drug. To further enhance the effectiveness of drug management, facility workers will be provided with one training session.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
