Dalton, Kieran http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1209-8079
O’Mahony, Denis
O’Sullivan, David
O’Connor, Marie N.
Byrne, Stephen
Article History
First Online: 19 January 2019
Compliance with Ethical Standards
:
: Kieran Dalton and Denis O’Mahony were funded by the SENATOR project, supported by the Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013 under Grant agreement number 305930. David O’Sullivan and Marie N. O’Connor were funded by a Health Research Board of Ireland grant to conduct the original RCTs (Grant HRA_HSR/2010/14). The funders had no part in the design of this study, the collection, analysis and interpretation of the data, the writing of the report, or the decision to submit the article for publication.
: Stephen Byrne and Denis O’Mahony have part ownership in a patent “A Prescription Decision Support System” (based on STOPP/START prescribing rules); the patent was registered with the European Patent Office (Munich); patent no. 11757950.8– 1952. Stephen Byrne and Denis O’Mahony are also affiliated with two European Commission-funded grants that involve clinical trials in which there is computerised deployment of the STOPP/START criteria as part of an intervention designed to optimise pharmacotherapy in older adults. The first European Commission grant is called “Development and clinical trials of a new Software ENgine for the Assessment and Optimization of drug and non-drug Therapy in Older peRsons [SENATOR]”, grant agreement 305930, awarded under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). The trial is registered with the US National Institutes of Health (NCT02097654). Denis O’Mahony is coordinator of the SENATOR project. The second European Commission-funded project is called “OPERAM: OPtimising thERapy to prevent Avoidable hospital admissions in the Multimorbid elderly”. OPERAM is funded under the Horizon 2020 programme (PHC 17-2014). The OPERAM trial is based on another software intervention called “Screening Tool to Reduce Inappropriate Prescribing”, which uses STOPP/START rules to assess the pharmacotherapy of older people. The trial is registered with the US National Institutes of Health (NCT02986425). Kieran Dalton, David O’Sullivan, and Marie N. O’Connor have no conflicts of interest that are directly relevant to the content of this article.
: Both RCTs were approved by the research ethics committee of the local teaching hospitals network, and both were registered with the National Institutes of Health in the USA: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier for RCT 1: NCT01467050; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier for RCT 2: NCT01467128. Written consent was obtained from all participating patients (or their next of kin) prior to RCT enrolment.