Use Case
Chronic polypharmacy
Polypharmacy—commonly defined as the concurrent use of five or more medications—has steadily increased in adults and is highly prevalent among older populations.
Prevalence & burden
- Adults 40–79: 22.4% used ≥5 prescriptions in the last 30 days (CDC/NCHS Data Brief 347). Source
- All U.S. adults: polypharmacy rose from 8.2% (1999–2000) to 17.1% (2017–2018). (Wang 2023)
- Global/elderly: reviews report roughly ~37%+ overall, with 44–58% of adults ≥65 taking ≥5 medications. (Kim 2024), (Delara 2022)
Clinical challenge
Risk of adverse drug events, prescribing cascades, and dose errors increases non‑linearly with regimen size. Standard EHR interaction checkers are binary and rarely quantify regimen‑level risk.
What OptimDosing enables
Regimen‑level modeling
Consider the full interaction matrix to estimate safe dose ranges for each agent in combination.
Trigger analytics
Correlate symptoms (dizziness, fatigue, cognition) with dose clusters and lifestyle factors.
Deprescribing support
Identify low‑value contributors and simulate safer regimens.
References
- CDC/NCHS Data Brief 347. Prescription drug use among adults 40–79.
- Wang X, et al. Prevalence and trends of polypharmacy in U.S. adults 1999–2018. BMC Public Health, 2023.
- Kim S, et al. Global/regional prevalence of polypharmacy. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 2024.
- Delara M, et al. Prevalence and factors associated with polypharmacy. BMC Public Health, 2022.