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Medications that reduce emergency hospital admissions: an overview of systematic reviews and prioritisation of treatments

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Medicine, July 2018
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (85th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
2 news outlets
blogs
4 blogs
twitter
119 X users
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

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20 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
149 Mendeley
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Title
Medications that reduce emergency hospital admissions: an overview of systematic reviews and prioritisation of treatments
Published in
BMC Medicine, July 2018
DOI 10.1186/s12916-018-1104-9
Pubmed ID
Authors

Niklas Bobrovitz, Carl Heneghan, Igho Onakpoya, Benjamin Fletcher, Dylan Collins, Alice Tompson, Joseph Lee, David Nunan, Rebecca Fisher, Brittney Scott, Jack O’Sullivan, Oliver Van Hecke, Brian D. Nicholson, Sarah Stevens, Nia Roberts, Kamal R. Mahtani

Abstract

Rates of emergency hospitalisations are increasing in many countries, leading to disruption in the quality of care and increases in cost. Therefore, identifying strategies to reduce emergency admission rates is a key priority. There have been large-scale evidence reviews to address this issue; however, there have been no reviews of medication therapies, which have the potential to reduce the use of emergency health-care services. The objectives of this study were to review systematically the evidence to identify medications that affect emergency hospital admissions and prioritise therapies for quality measurement and improvement. This was a systematic review of systematic reviews. We searched MEDLINE, PubMed, the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews & Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effects, Google Scholar and the websites of ten major funding agencies and health charities, using broad search criteria. We included systematic reviews of randomised controlled trials that examined the effect of any medication on emergency hospital admissions among adults. We assessed the quality of reviews using AMSTAR. To prioritise therapies, we assessed the quality of trial evidence underpinning meta-analysed effect estimates and cross-referenced the evidence with clinical guidelines. We identified 140 systematic reviews, which included 1968 unique randomised controlled trials and 925,364 patients. Reviews contained 100 medications tested in 47 populations. We identified high-to moderate-quality evidence for 28 medications that reduced admissions. Of these medications, 11 were supported by clinical guidelines in the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe. These 11 therapies were for patients with heart failure (angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin II receptor blockers, aldosterone receptor antagonists and digoxin), stable coronary artery disease (intensive statin therapy), asthma exacerbations (early inhaled corticosteroids in the emergency department and anticholinergics), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (long-acting muscarinic antagonists and long-acting beta-2 adrenoceptor agonists) and schizophrenia (second-generation antipsychotics and depot/maintenance antipsychotics). We identified 11 medications supported by strong evidence and clinical guidelines that could be considered in quality monitoring and improvement strategies to help reduce emergency hospital admission rates. The findings are relevant to health systems with a large burden of chronic disease and those managing increasing pressures on acute health-care services.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 119 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 149 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 149 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 22 15%
Student > Master 17 11%
Student > Bachelor 15 10%
Student > Ph. D. Student 13 9%
Other 11 7%
Other 35 23%
Unknown 36 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 50 34%
Nursing and Health Professions 12 8%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 10 7%
Psychology 7 5%
Social Sciences 4 3%
Other 29 19%
Unknown 37 25%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 106. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 30 January 2024.
All research outputs
#397,847
of 25,483,400 outputs
Outputs from BMC Medicine
#313
of 4,033 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#8,532
of 341,516 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Medicine
#11
of 67 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,483,400 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 4,033 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 45.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 92% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 341,516 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 67 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 85% of its contemporaries.