Perspectives on Deprescribing Communication in Primary Care

OPTIMIZE¹ seeks to provide patients, care partners, and clinicians with tools—educational brochures and tip sheets—to foster thoughtful conversations about deprescribing. We agree that accurate medication reconciliation is an essential first step to such conversations. A pharmacy notebook such as the one you describe, involving indications for each medicine and patient memos with reasons for discontinuation, could be extremely useful. We would be very interested to see this approach tested as part of a deprescribing intervention, as it is consistent with engaging patients and caregivers and increasing trusting conversations.