Incidence of Prescribing Potentially Inappropriate Medications to Older Cardiovascular Patients During COVID-19 Pandemics According to Medical Information System BARS

It is essential to improve patient safety by determining an individual's exposure to potentially inappropriate drugs.

This study will be performed to find out the incidence of potentially inappropriate medication (PIM) administration, polypharmacy, and potential drug-drug-interactions (PDDIs) in cardiovascular patients enrolled in the reimbursement program in the time of COVID-19 pandemic.

Method: Medical information system (MIS) "BARS" will be used for inclusion and retrieval of relevant data of cardiovascular patients enrolled in the reimbursement programs in the Tomsk Region. Incidence of PIM administration, polypharmacy, and PDDIs in the time of COVID-19 pandemic will be studied. Brief characteristics of MIS "BARS" implemented in the Diagnostic and Consultation Center of Cardiology Research Institute, Tomsk National Research Medical Center, Russian Academy of Sciences (NRMC) are as follows: MIS "BARS" is a universal solution for automatization of activities of medical institutions of various specializations and scale ranging from small highly specialized clinics to multi-specialty hospitals and medical centers. The system is the united information space for administrative, treatment-and-diagnostic, and financial-and-economic processes of medical institution. MIS "BARS" is a cloud-based solution, and the deployment of the system in cloud allows getting the remote access to working places from any location. The system is built based on module principle. The system implements automatic control over provision of medical services allowing for feedback with practical healthcare workers. The system is integrated with other information systems and medical equipment. The advantage of the system consists in a capability to assess economic element of study parameters. Technical characteristics of MIS "BARS": The system has a centralized data base with provision of protected remote access for users. The system is organized based on principle of three-tiered architecture: Web browser, Web-server, and database server. ORACLE is used as a database server, which provides the highest data security, scalability, fall-over protection, and the greatest capabilities for integration. Built-in mechanisms of functional system expansion allow to perform advanced customization.

Expected Results: Patient demographics, clinical data, instrumental examination data, and medication prescriptions will be collected using electronic medical records stored in medical information system (MIS) "BARS". The incidence rates of PIM prescriptions will be assessed. Potentially inappropriate medications will be defined according to 2015 Beers criteria. Polypharmacy will be defined as being administered five or more medications at the same time. PDDIs will be checked with Medscape Drug Interaction Checker and rated as 'Contraindicated', 'Serious', and 'Requiring Monitoring'. Combined analysis of retrospective and prospective occurrences of study parameters will be performed.

Conclusion: PIM-BARS will evaluate the incidence rates and patterns of PIM prescriptions, polypharmacy, and PDDIs in elderly cardiovascular patients enrolled in the reimbursement program in the time of COVID-19 pandemic. This effort will contribute to prevention of medication errors by inappropriate prescribing.