This consensus guideline describes expanded criteria to identify inappropriate medication prescribing for older patients. This strategy can address high rates of adverse drug events in older populations, especially if integrated into clinical decision support.

The causative factors leading to medication prescribing errors by resident physicians were elucidated through a qualitative approach that focused on identifying latent errors.

This study discovered that decision-making and actual writing of prescriptions are not always performed by the same provider.

Many medications, particularly sedatives and other drugs with significant side effects, are considered inappropriate for prescribing in elderly patients. However, the existing Beers criteria for appropriateness lack predictive power for adverse drug events. This prospective cohort study reports on the validation of the STOPP criteria, a novel list of medications considered inappropriate for elderly patients. Patients who received medications considered inappropriate by STOPP had a nearly two-fold increased odds of an adverse drug event during hospitalization, while the Beers criteria failed to predict medication errors. Given the recognized limitations of the Beers criteria, the STOPP criteria likely represent a superior method of identifying dangerous medications in geriatric patients.

This review analyzed research on prescribing errors among physicians in training and found that the problem exists regardless of delivery system, training modality, or organizational infrastructure. The authors call for a well-conducted study of such errors to allow development and evaluation of appropriate interventions.

The investigators issued questionnaires to parents in seven community pharmacies to prospectively monitor pediatric adverse drug reactions (ADRs). They found that the system was effective for reporting ADRs.