Problem Statement & Recommendation. Adverse Drug Events cause approximately $3.5 billion of annual excess medical costs in the U.S. We may be able to prevent 40% of costs related to ambulatory (non-hospital) Adverse Drug Events. iv Elderly use over 30% of the drugs prescribed and experience over 33.6% of severe or serious ADEs which are defined by the FDA as resulting in death, disability, or hospitalizations. v Twenty percent of ADEs are caused by medication errors and are preventable. Twenty- six percent of medication errors are caused in the administration xxxxx.xx Administration errors include taking the wrong dose, wrong drug, with the wrong technique, at the wrong time, or missed dose. vii The problem is exacerbated by the lack of a useful Adverse Drug Event surveillance system that could provide data to more appropriately target interventions. In order to reduce the costs of Adverse Drug Events in seniors, this pilot implementation of a mobile SMART on FHIR application; MyMedsTracker, will provide a medication guidance tool, prescription history record, caregiver and family member alert system, and a medication adherence history integrated with the patient’s EMR under a Medication Reconciliation Tab. This data can be sent to a surveillance system of Adverse Drug Events at the CDC/CSELS branch weekly. The pilot implementation will focus on seniors with Chronic Heart Failure in one regional health plan. In the future, this can be implemented for seniors throughout the nation.
Problem Statement & Recommendation i. Problem: Rural Americans are a population group that is challenged with disparities in health outcomes. Factors that underlie health disparities in rural populations includeix:
