A study recently published in the Journal of Patient Safety demonstrated that medication risk scores are powerful indicators of increased risk of death among patients taking one or more medications, adding to the growing body of evidence validating TRHC’s MedWise Risk Score™ as an indicator for negative clinical outcomes.
Key Takeaways:
- After adjustments for common multi-morbidities and other conditions that increase the risk of death, the study showed that patients with EHR-recorded deaths had significantly higher risk scores than others
- Higher risk scores correlated with increased mortality (patients who died had a higher median number of medications 7 vs 4; p<0.01)
- Risk of mortality varied by age and risk score
- Highest mortality was observed in patients aged 30 to 49 with risk scores greater than 20
- Among that group, a one-point increase in MRS was associated with an 11% increase in hazard of death
- This is a key milestone in the validation of the clinical utility of TRHC’s MedWise Risk Score to predict clinical outcomes, complementing earlier publications showing correlations between higher risk scores and increased adverse drug events (ADEs), emergency department visits, and hospitalizations