New tool helps doctors stop unnecessary drugs for older hospital patients

Older patients often leave the hospital with too many medicines. For people over 65 who stay in the hospital for two days or more, this can be dangerous. Doctors must decide which drugs to keep and which to stop. But reading thousands of medical notes is hard work. A team in New South Wales, Australia, built a smart tool to help. They tested it on records from six public hospitals. The system looked at notes about antibiotics and opioids. It found over 9,600 medication mentions and pulled out 1,000 sentences that suggested stopping a drug. The computer was very good at this job. It matched expert human reviewers with a high score of 0.91. It also agreed with other experts most of the time. The whole process took just 12 seconds for each patient record. This speed means doctors can use it without waiting hours for results. The tool works on local hospital computers. This keeps patient data safe and private. One small issue appeared during testing. Sometimes the system thought a medicine was stopped after discharge when it was actually finished during the stay. The researchers noted this mistake happens often. They are working to fix it. This tool offers a practical way to catch errors. It helps hospitals save money while keeping patients safer.