There are multiple dimensions of challenge if you live with #MLTC and we are now turning to a deep dive into one of them: #polypharmacy - taking multiple medications for those multiple conditions.
We’re honoured to have Prof Tony Avery who is the National Clinical Director for Prescribing for NHS England chair the discussion and present an introduction including recommendations for systematic and cultural improvements within the NHS.
Our next speaker Lauren Walker, Co-PI DynAIRx is presenting on “Using real world data to identify and plan interventions to minimise polypharmacy and transform prescribing in multiple long term conditions”
The team have been engaging with clinicians to ask what AI tools would be useful for them? They all emphasised the importance of transparency in how any tool makes its recommendation / decision.
Mike Barnes of Queen Mary University is having us ponder even how you define something like a “long term prescription”? What is long? What if someone switches medications? How long a gap is enough to note?
The AI-Multiply team are taking a longitudinal approach and using #AI and data science tools to follow prescribing data over time for individuals and then summarising them across cohorts.
Our last speaker in this session is Krish Nirantharakumar Co-PI Optimal at the University of Birmingham. His talk is focused on Utilising an informatics consult to improve prescribing.
His team are building tools to visualise and analyse the prescribing of multiple long term conditions. The tool can also start to predict what conditions might emerge over time!
As part of the discussion Prof Avery has invited Alan Griffiths - who has multiple long term conditions and who takes 14 pills per day. He talks about how these define him (or not) and which elements are the most challenging.
“It’s not the conditions that are the hardest part, it’s what I have to do to manage all of them, every day. Especially through some of the hardest times in my life.”
KirstieJane