Retirement and nursing homes was also observed in a home in Vorarlberg that up to 15 long-term medicinal products and additional medication for individual ailments were prescribed with daily dosage. In a home in Burgenland, a resident with multimorbidity was prescribed as many as 22 oral medicinal products with daily dosage, of which four were psychotropic medication. During the visit, Commission 6 recommended that a medical specialist clarify the interaction of the different medications due to the effect of an analgesic on the central nervous system. Polypharmacy often occurs when residents are treated by several doctors (general practitioner, internist, psychiatrist). This is why the medical documentation in nursing homes is so important. In a home in Lower Austria, a resident was prescribed 16 medicinal products for oral administration, including eight centrally effective psychotropic medication and analgesic medication, two compounds from the antidepressant group, an antipsychotic for anticonvulsant therapy and a benzodiazepine as well as Hydal, a strong, addictive, prescription medicine. The patient documentation did not facilitate examination of whether the medication was necessary or whether there were interactions or contraindications. Necessity of medication not verifiable The topic of “Prevention of polypharmacy” was the focus of the annual exchange of experience and ideas among the Austrian NPM in 2019. The NPM took this opportunity to thank Diemut Strasser and Elisabeth Kretschmer for their presentation of the “Geriatric medication management in stationary facilities” (“Geriatrisches Medikationsmanagement in stationären Einrichtungen”) project – in short, GEMED. Best practice: GEMED project The aim of GEMED was to demonstrate potential for improvement with respect to medication-based care in nursing homes, in particular the reduction of polypharmacy. The focus was thus the collaboration between caregivers, doctors and pharmacies. Participants were pharmacies, general practitioners and senior citizens’ homes in eleven municipalities in Salzburg (with a total of 611 persons in need of care at an average age of 84). The project ran from November 2016 to October 2017. Goals and participants At the beginning of the project, those in need of care were taking an average of eleven pharmaceutical ingredients daily, including a so-called PIM medication. This is a medication that is potentially inadequate for those over the age of 65. The caregivers were given special training in the observation of therapy on the basis of ten parameters which included the most important interactions and side effects such as dizziness, confusion, delirium, bleeding, skin reactions, movement disorders, hypotension etc. Any change in the patients’ condition was documented daily, in particular after adjustments to their medication. Pharmacists analysed the medication. Regular therapy observation and analysis of medication Based on this information, written recommendations were created monthly for the attending doctors. This affected 212 residents (35%), for whom alone 502 medication-related risks were identified. In some 16% of the cases, an 36