A novel approach to stratifying patients for medication review in the emergency department using medications and routine blood tests

AIMS: The inconsistent impact of medication review on adverse clinical outcomes suggests that stratification based solely on age and number of medications, without considering disease burden, is inadequate. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations between medication use and FI-OutRef (a frailty index based on abnormal routine blood tests) with 90-day readmission or mortality and to evaluate the utility of FI-OutRef in patient stratification for medication review. METHODS: This single-centre, observational, register-based cohort study included acutely admitted medical patients presenting to the emergency department (ED) of Copenhagen University Hospital Hvidovre, Denmark, who received routine blood tests (including 17 standard biomarkers) between November 2013 and March 2017. Patients