Reducing medication complexity

A multi-disciplinary team developed a tool for aged care facilities to simplify medication and conducted a trial to measure its effectiveness

Medication administration in an aged care environment is complex and fragmented and has many potential benefits in using an integrated approach for both the administration and the wellbeing of residents. MRS GRACE (Medication Regimen Simplification Guide for Residential Aged Care) is the first validated tool to assist pharmacists and medical practitioners to determine whether the medications prescribed to a resident can be consolidated.

‘Simplification of Medications Prescribed to Long Term Care Residents’, known as SIMPLER, is a randomised control trial that investigated the effectiveness of the MRS GRACE medication simplification tool.

The effectiveness of this tool was measured in the five-year SIMPLER trial that recruited 240 residents across Helping Hand Aged Care’s (CDPC partner) eight aged care facilities to participate in the  intervention to simplify medication regimens.
More information

SIMPLER study protocol

MRS GRACE tool, manuscript and video abstract

SIMPLER trial registration

Community medication simplification trial registration

Contact

Associate Professor Simon Bell