STOPP (Screening Tool of Older Persons’ Prescriptions) and START (Screening Tool to Alert to Right Treatment) criteria are used to identify potentially inappropriate prescribing in older adults. This article describes the consensus process to update and validate the third version of the STOPP/START criteria using evidence from a systematic review and input from a panel with expertise in geriatric pharmacology. The consensus process resulted in additional STOPP criteria (133 versus 80 in version 2) and START criteria (57 versus 34 in version 2). The additional criteria in version 3 can help clinicians detect and prevent adverse drug-drug and drug-disease interactions.

Detection of adverse events in routine care remains a challenge. Investigators developed an automated analytic tool to review administrative databases to identify postoperative bleeding following hip replacement and venous thromboembolic events. Rates of these two events identified by the tool were similar to expected rates based on prior studies. The authors conclude that their automated tool may be useful for detecting adverse events for future epidemiologic studies.

This study developed scorecards that screen real-time data with complex automated rules to identify possible adverse drug events (ADEs). Providing these scorecards to physicians, nurses, and pharmacists raised awareness but did not reduce rates of ADEs.