Doctors in hospitals often do not know exactly what drugs their patients are taking already.

especially in patients that are in need of at least five medications at the same time, there is a lack of Information, which can have dangerous consequences, the health insurance company Barmer in your medicine report that you presented on Thursday in Berlin.

Also, the patients themselves do not know often about the medicines know.

"It is incomprehensible that the admission to hospital is as a million times the process is so error-prone. This can be life threatening. It must be prevented that patients 'deficits on the basis of Information to come to harm", writes the Barmer-Chairman of the Board Christoph Straub.

Also at the time of discharge from the hospitals there is a lack often sufficient information for the treating Physicians.

Every third person in a hospital treated a Patient with a different therapy, where I receive an updated medication plan. Many Respondents have specified that the new therapy had not been declared by the doctor.

"A medicinal therapy can only be successful if the Patient understands you and supports. To do this he must get it accordingly explains," the author of the drug reports, Daniel Grandt, head physician at the Klinikum Saarbrücken.

Every year, several million people to the hospital, taking at least five drugs at the same time, therefore. Alone in 2017, 2.8 million people on the day of your clinic, therefore, is nationwide-so-called Polypharmacy patients.

according to The report, had only 29 percent of the patients at the clinic receiving the Federal uniform medication plan, the loss of Information between Doctors prevent. Thus, any Patient taking at least three medicines regularly since October of 2016, the right to such a Plan.

17 percent had no current list of your medications. Existing plans were often incomplete.

the cause of the information deficit is less of the individual physician, rather than the poorly organised and not adequately digitally-supported process of a cross-sector treatment, criticized Straub.

The Barmer have, therefore, developed for your Insured, a concept to improve the flow of information.

For the report were, according to Barmer is around 2900 Polypharmacy Insured interviewed patients over the age of 65 and 150 family doctors.

source

• Barmer Institute for health system research (2020): BARMER medicines, report 2020, retrieved on 13.08.2020: https://www.barmer.de/blob/254084/b1fa6438da1c611b757a7b74b982f62a/data/dl-barmer-arzneimittelreport.pdf

Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa)

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