Organized by the University of Houston College of Pharmacy and the McGovern Medical School at UTHealth Houston, the fifth Geriatric Medication Safety Symposium May 7-8 in Houston’s Texas Medical Center focused on practical, real-world ways technology can support safer prescribing, detect adverse drug events, improve care coordination and reduce medication-related harm in geriatric care.
Held virtually and in person May 7-8, the National Institute on Aging-supported symposium brought together over 100 practitioners, researchers and trainees in medicine, pharmacy, nursing and dentistry from multiple academic institutions and healthcare organizations in the Greater Houston/Galveston area and beyond. Among the sessions held at the Denton A. Cooley, MD and Ralph C. Cooley, DDS University Life Center in Houston's Texas Medical Center were a workshop, a panel discussion, poster and podium presentations, and plenary talks from leading experts in the field.
The workshop, “Hands-On Clinical Natural Language Processing for Detecting Adverse Drug Events in Older Adults with Heart Failure,” was led by Sunyang Fu, MHI, Ph.D., assistant professor and associate director of Team Science at the Center for Translational AI Excellence and Applications in Medicine at the McWilliams School of Biomedical Informatics.
Malaz Boustani, M.D., MPH, Richard M. Fairbanks Professor of Aging Research and Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, offered insights into “Technology as a Tool to Enhance Medication Safety for Older Adults: Insights from Agile Science and Its Derivatives.”
Virginia LeBaron, Ph.D., APRN, FAAN, Kluge-Schakat Associate Professor of Compassionate Care at the University of Virginia School of Nursing, presented “Empowering Comfort at Home: Leveraging Remote Health Monitoring Technology to Manage Cancer Pain.”
Scott Nelson, Pharm.D., M.S., FAMIA, ACHIP, associate professor of Biomedical Informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, discussed “Bridging the Digital Divide: How AI Can Transform (or Fail) Geriatric Medication Safety.”
The panel session, “Transforming Patient Care Through Technology: Real-World Implementation,” included speakers Hasnaa Diraoui, MSN, RN, MSRN-BC, nurse informaticist at Houston Methodist Hospital; Amaris Fuentes, Pharm.D., BCCCP, manager of clinical informatics at Houston Methodist Hospital; and Winston Liaw, M.D., MPH, chair and clinical professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health Sciences at the University of Houston Tilman J. Fertitta Family College of Medicine. LeBaron served as panel moderator.
In addition to continuing education credits provided to attendees, awards were presented for the top presentations among the four podium sessions and 20 posters displayed at the symposium. UHCOP Ph.D. candidate Javeria Khalid, Pharm.D., won for her poster presentation, “Cardiovascular Safety of Nucleot(s)ide Analogues in Older Adults with Hepatitis B: Target-Trial Emulation,” and UHCOP postdoctoral fellow Yinan Wang, Ph.D., won for her podium presentation titled “Risk of Antipsychotic Initiation with Cholinesterase Inhibitor Use in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias.”
The symposium was co-chaired by grant principal investigators Rajender R. Aparasu, Ph.D., FAPhA, UHCOP Mustafa F. & Sanober Lokhandwala Professor and chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes and Policy, and Min Ji Kwak, M.D., M.S., DrPH, McGovern Medical School at UTHealth associate professor in the Joan & Stanford Alexander Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine.
“Technology has tremendous potential to transform geriatric medication safety, but its value depends on how thoughtfully it is designed, implemented and evaluated,” Aparasu said. “This symposium highlighted real-world approaches across disciplines that can support safer prescribing, improve detection of adverse drug events and strengthen care coordination for older adults.”
