Meaningful Use of Antidepressants in Long-term Care Facilities

Abstract

Depression is a common medical condition present in about 14% of nursing home patients. Many older patients prescribed antidepressants (AD) rarely have them discontinued. The goal of this quality improvement project was to implement a process in a long-term care (LTC) facility in rural New York to decrease use of ADs among 55 residents by 25% within 3 months of implementation, while monitoring their overall health and well-being. The project resulted in a higher success rate than what had been previously achieved. This process can be implemented for other medications and at other LTC facilities.