Polypharmacy and health politics

Polypharmacy: Health Politics

Polypharmacy is a major problem within the aging geriatric population here in the United States, as well as elsewhere. A number of professional organizations, like Medicare, Medicaid, and the Ohio Patient Safety Institute have various ways of combating this growing problem. Medicare and Medicaid are similar in their approaches with working with computer monitoring and funding programs for seniors to access generic and brand name medications for a fraction of their original costs; whereas, the Ohio Patient Safety Institute works independently to predominately provide tailored and cost effective training for proper medication usage.

It is essentially "the use of multiple medications," which ca often lead to problematic consequences (Bushardt et al., 2008). The geriatric population is especially vulnerable for problems arising from multiple drug use and inappropriate dosing because of the nature of health care provided to aging patients. In many cases, older senior patients do not play as active of a role in their own healthcare strategies, and they are often plagued with much more chronic conditions compared to younger generations that would require ongoing medication of various sorts (Bushardt et al., 2008). This is often caused by interactions between various drugs, which increases the risk of problems associated with polypharmacy. When medications of different kinds are prescribed by different doctors, some patients can fall through the gaps, and be prescribed combinations of medications that can actually have harmful and negative consequences when taken together. Essentially, when multiple health conditions require more than one specialist to attend a single individual patient, there is an increasing risk factor. Some patients even turn to using multiple pharmacies, which only complicate the situation even more. Many elderly patients might get confused as to their dosages of various medications with so many they have to take, and without proper training or guidance, they thus unintentionally misuse their medications.

Moreover, many patients do not have enough funding to pay for all of their necessary medication. This often leads to patients skipping medication doses, which can impact the degree of success they're healthcare strategies achieve based on limited exposure to their prescribed medications. Such problems associated with polypharmacy can have negative affects on the entire health care system as well, with polypharmacy being "recognized as an expensive practice: the U.S. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that polypharmacy costs its nation's health plans more then U.S. $50 billion annually" (Bushardt et al., 2008). However, there are no formal federal or state policies that regulate various healthcare practices in a way that would help reduce the incidence of writing inappropriate prescriptions within the geriatric population here in the United States.

The majority of nurse practitioners commit themselves daily to help provide compassionate and comprehensive healthcare that focuses on disease prevention and health promotion within a cost effective format. Our elders deserve the respect of appropriate and successful treatment and preventative measures to help reduce the risk of complications associated with polypharmacy. As such, the goal of policy aimed at reducing this practice tries to formulate a more active plan for keeping track of patient records and keeping costs of medications down in order to prevent patients from skipping doses (Lorenz, 2012). In order to provide effective policies and practices to reduce risks associated with polypharmacy, many organizations have turned to using computer-based recording as a way to help keep track of medications prescribed across specialist and doctors (Bushardt et al., 2008). Additionally, federal health care programs, like Medicare and Medicaid are working continuously to help improve policies and help make medication more affordable to patients, especially elderly patients who may misuse medications when they do not have the funds to purchase all of the dosages they may need (Bushardt et al., 2008). These organizations help keep the cost burden off of the patients, and help provide assistance in funding medications for those in need, so that no elderly man or woman should have to skip doses because of the lack of money. The Ohio Patient Safety Institute has helped develop a cost-effective program to help seniors understand the nature of their medications. This program is known as the Brown Bag Mediation Review, where "patients are asked to bring all their medications, including over-the-counter medications, vitamins, supplements and other botanicals, in for a review and discussion" (Lorenz, 2012). Workers in the organization help provide a plan for how and what to take that seniors can follow through on and adjust as a medication needs change. This has been effective because it does not need the dependence of having to rely on costly physicians to explain and educate patients, but rather can use volunteers and students in medical and nursing school to help spread education about polypharmacy without the high cost.