Polypharmacy is common among older patients with common diseases. There is a strong need for evaluation management and consultation services of polypharmacy among older patients from medical workers, patients and their families. However, the functional design of how to scientifically and accurately manage services and consultations based on Internet technology for different categories of users has not been adequately studied.

To conduct investigation on the design of the service functions and methods of platform for evaluation management and consultation services of polypharmacy among older patients for healthcare professionals, taking the Internet services oriented to improve irrational drug use and reduce drug-related adverse events in older patients as a new idea.

Healthcare professionals from medical institutions participating in the National Key Research and Development Program (Multiple Drug Use Risk Management for Common Diseases of the Elderly) from 2021-02-20 to 2021-03-06 were selected as research subjects, the self-designed Questionnaire on Platform for Evaluation Management and Consultation Services of Polypharmacy among Older Patients Needs of Healthcare Professionals focusing on the necessity, operation mode and function of the platform were distributed. Principal component analysis was used to extract common factors for each platform function, and further factor rotation was performed using Kaiser's normalized maximum variance method, and the mean values of each factor score were ranked to explain the relative importance of each factor.

A total of 548 valid research questionnaires were collected in this study with recovery rate of 100.00%. The cumulative total variance explained by the third factor in the sum of squared factor extracted for the 8 platform functions (patient compliance evaluation, prescription appropriateness evaluation, prescription economy evaluation, medication administration notification and reminder, medication administration precautions, medication administration record management, potential medication problem reminder, adverse drug reactions record and analysis) was 77.036%. The 8 platform functions were finally extracted into 3 factors, named as reminder factor (F1) , evaluation factor (F2) , and adverse analysis factor (F3) , and the ranking of the mean values of the 3 factors in descending order was F1 (mean factor score of 2.977) , F2 (mean factor score of 0.118) , and F3 (mean factor score of 0.112) .

From the perspective of healthcare professionals, reminder, evaluation and adverse analysis are the main operation modes and core functions of the platform for evaluation management and consultation services of polypharmacy among older patients, with reminder-related functions as the most important functions, which will provide substantial help to ensure the effective contribution of the platform to the construction of polypharmacy risk monitoring and control system for common diseases of the elderly in China.