Program > Keynotes

Keynotes

Opening Keynote: Barbara Farrell (University of Ottawa, Canada)

Dealing with polypharmacy - Lessons learned from 25 years of deprescribing

Barbara Farrell PharmD is an Associate Professor with the Department of Family Medicine, University of Ottawa, founder and senior advisor of the  Deprescribing Guidelines Research team Deprescribing.org, a founding member of the Canadian Medication Appropriateness and Deprescribing Network and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the United States Deprescribing Research Network.

Description: Dr Farrell will share her experience working with patients in a Geriatric Day Hospital practice, how this influenced her understanding of what healthcare providers and patients need to manage polypharmacy, and the effectiveness of clinical, educational and research actions that she’s taken to promote conversations about medication benefit and harm as people age.

First day closing keynote: Georges Marcoux – David Gardner (Dalhousie University, Canada)

Transforming insomnia care with a direct-to-patient mailed sedative deprescribing intervention  

Georges Marcoux is a patient partner involved in the Sleepwell initiative, with Dalhousie University researcher David Gardner, PharmD.

Description: How did the Sleepwell 2-booklet package lead to reduced sedative use while improving sleep outcomes? Was it the embedded behaviour change techniques, direct-to-patient mailed engagement, or raised awareness about cognitive behavioural  therapy for insomnia? In this session, we’ll share a personnel experience of chronic insomnia, long-term sedative use, and the impact of receiving the Sleepwell package by mail as well are our latest research findings. We’ll also examine how to raise community interest, access, and use of first-line insomnia therapy while enabling sedative deprescribing.

Second day closing keynote: Anne Spinewine (UCLouvain, Belgium) - Franck Moriarty (RCSI, Ireland)

Looking back and looking forward - Where to next for deprescribing?

Anne Spinewine (MPharm, PhD) is Professor at UCLouvain and head of clinical pharmacy at CHU UCL Namur (Belgium). Frank Moriarty (MPharm, PhD) is senior lecturer at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences (Ireland). They are both specialized in medications use in older adults.

Description: Dr Spinewine and Dr Moriarty will take a look in the rear-view mirror to highlight their personal gems from the scientific content of ICOD2, and from there discuss challenges and perspectives on deprescribing research and practice in the future.