Reducing Potentially Inappropriate Medication Prescribing for Older Patients in the ED

Enhancing Quality of Prescribing Practices for Older Adults Discharged from the Emergency Department (EQUIPPED is a multi-component program to reduce the prescribing of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) to older adults upon discharge from the Emergency Department (ED). It has three core components: 1) provider education, 2) Electronic Health Record (EHR)-based clinical decision support (CDS) including pharmacy quick order sets to facilitate provider order entry, and 3) provider audit and feedback with peer benchmarking. In order to inform a Veterans Affairs (VA) system-wide approach to improve prescribing safety for older Veterans, the investigators will conduct a study to determine best practices for influencing provider prescribing behavior in order to decrease PIMs prescribed for older Veterans at the time of ED discharge. The overall goal of this project is to determine which EQUIPPED implementation strategy (active or passive feedback) is most effective to reduce prescribing of PIMs for older Veterans discharged from the ED.