INTERPOLAR - Reducing medication related problems and drug interactions

Identifying high-risk medication and targeting interventions

The goal of the INTERPOLAR Use Case is to use an algorithm to identify hospitalised patients who are at high risk of clinically relevant medication problems that can be influenced. This allows ward pharmacists to focus on those patients who will benefit most from their assessment. This can speed up routine care processes and improve medication safety. An IT-supported risk score will be developed to determine the risk for all admitted patients. Accompanying studies should show that IT-based risk assessment significantly reduces the number of adverse drug events.

"Too many medication problems are not detected or are detected too late because existing patient data are not (able to be) used. We want to change that in INTERPOLAR."

Prof. Dr. Renke Maas

The project consists of four phases. First, the technical requirements for consolidating, analysing, and evaluating patient and medication data will be established at each participating data integration centre. Then, two intervention studies will be conducted at the participating sites. The final phase will investigate whether the INTERPOLAR setup can be used outside a traditional trial setting with similar effects on drug safety. Finally, the collected data will be used to improve the algorithms and develop multivariate and longitudinal prediction models.

Improving drug safety through data analysis

The basis for the intervention studies in INTERPOLAR was the cross-consortium Use Case POLAR. From February 2020 to December 2022, methods were developed and used to collect personal medication data from routine care and drug prescriptions from pharmacies. A selected range of polymedications were classified for potentially inappropriate medication using the available methods. The project also contributed significantly to the mapping of medication and laboratory information in the MII core dataset. INTERPOLAR builds on the results of POLAR and applies them to clinical practice. This will reduce the workload of ward pharmacists and allow patients to receive more targeted care.

"INTERPOLAR focuses on the identification of patients with or at high risk of drug-related problems and builds consistently on our preliminary work in POLAR. In contrast to POLAR, in which inpatient treatment data on this topic were analysed retrospectively across consortia from 2020, INTERPOLAR is designed to be prospective. We want to support the valuable work of ward pharmacists by providing them with relevant data on inpatient care. At the same time, we are breaking new ground with INTERPOLAR in the area of evaluation and are working to expand the services as well as the infrastructure of the Medical Informatics Initiative and the Data Integration Centres."

Prof. Dr. André Scherag

INTERPOLAR is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) from 01/01/2023 to 31/12/2026 with more than 8 million Euros.

Further information:

https://www.smith.care/en/interpolar/

Interview with pharmacologist Prof. Dr Petra Thürmann and pharmacist Dr Beate Mussawy of INTERPOLAR

Contact:

Project Lead:

Prof. Dr. Markus Löffler
Network Coordinator
Head of the SMITH Consortium
Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics and Epidemiology (IMISE)
Leipzig University

Prof. Dr. Renke Maas
Deputy Network Coordinator
Professorship for Drug Therapy Safety and Clinical Pharmacology,
Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology and Toxicology
Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen

Prof. Dr. André Scherag
Deputy Network Coordinator
Director of the Institute of Medical Statistics,
Computer and Data Sciences (IMSID)
Jena University Hospital

Project co-ordination:

Dr. Daniel Neumann
Scientific Project Management
Institute for Medical Informatics, Statistics, and Epidemiology (IMISE)
Leipzig University

Jenny Kaftan
Administrative Project Management
SMITH-Office
Leipzig University

Partners:

• Leipzig University
• FAU Erlangen
• University Hospital Erlangen
• Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University Bonn
• University Hospital Bonn
• Heidelberg University Hospital
• TU Dresden – Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus
• University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf
• Jena University Hospital
• Leipzig University Hospital
• Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich – Hospital
• University Hospital RWTH Aachen
• Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg – Faculty of Medicine
• University Hospital of Giessen
• University Hospital Halle (Saale)
• University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz
• University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Campus Kiel
• Essen University Hospital
• Witten/Herdecke University
• The Federal Association of German Hospital Pharmacists (associated Partner)