Predicting poorer health outcomes in older community-dwelling patients with multimorbidity:

Predicting poorer health outcomes in older community-dwelling patients with multimorbidity: prospective cohort study assessing the accuracy of different multimorbidity definitions
BMJ Open. 2019; 9(1): e023919. 4 January 2019

• This study compared the accuracy of medication classes count and diagnosis-based multimorbidity measures at higher cut-points to identify older community-dwelling patients who are at risk of poorer health outcomes based on data from 15 GP practices in Ireland. 
• Neither measure demonstrated high sensitivity. However, medication classes count using a definition of 10 or more regular medication classes to define multimorbidity had higher specificity for predicting poorer health outcomes. While having limitations, this definition could be used for proactive identification of patients who may benefit from targeted clinical care.