Medicines optimisation tool - MOAT

WITH medicines optimisation a key role for pharmacists, UK researchers have developed and evaluated a Medicines Optimisation Assessment Tool (MOAT), describing it as a “prognostic model to target hospital pharmacists’ input to prevent medication-related problems”.

Patients from adult medical wards at two UK hospitals were prospectively included into the cohort study.

Data on medication-related problems were collected by pharmacists at the study sites as part of their routine daily clinical assessments.

Published in the latest BMJ Quality & Safety journal, the study drew on data from 1,503 eligible admissions with 40.6% (610) experiencing the study outcome. Eighteen risk factors were preselected for MOAT development, with 11 variables retained in the final model.

The MOAT demonstrated “fair predictive performance (concordance index 0.66) and good calibration,” authors wrote, leading them to conclude that the MOAT “has potential to predict those patients most at risk of moderate or severe preventable medicationrelated problems, experienced by 41% of admissions.

“External validation is now required to establish predictive accuracy in a new group of patients,” they added.

CLICK HERE to access the study.