The Polypharmacy Diaries || Olga Kits, PhD

Fragments of a Resident in Long Term Care

How Residents Are Made Present in Medication Decisions

Aug 15 • Olga Kits, PhD

3

April 2025

How Medications Stay: Doctor Day in Long-Term Care

Two vignettes—Ativan and Teva—offer a closer look at the routines that hold polypharmacy in place.

Apr 13 • Olga Kits, PhD

1

February 2025

The Nurses’ Room: A Hidden Hub of Care and Paperwork

In a previous post, I discussed how the LTCF (long-term care facility) and each of its floors is tethered to the institutional routines (medication…

Feb 24 • Olga Kits, PhD

2

1

How Spaces and Routines Shape Long-Term Care

To change how care is provided in our complex health care systems, we must first understand the underlying systems and routines that make certain ways…

Feb 9 • Olga Kits, PhD

3

1

Medications in Motion: The Many Hands of Long-Term Care

In long-term care, medications don’t just appear at a resident’s bedside.

Feb 2 • Olga Kits, PhD

2

January 2025

From Research to Podcast: AI Brings Polypharmacy to Life

Exploring the Power of Google NotebookLM to Simplify Complex Topics

Jan 7 • Olga Kits, PhD

1

13:29

November 2024

Polypharmacy is an Organizational Practice

At Northwood, polypharmacy isn’t just a process—it’s an organizational practice, an intricate web of overlapping and interconnected routines that…

Nov 25, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD

2

August 2024

Polypharmacy Decoded: 5 Snippets of Nonstop Work and Hidden Effort

While I will dive deeper into the following five areas in future posts, here’s a condensed glimpse into the intricate dance of polypharmacy and the…

Aug 20, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD

June 2024

Tracing the Flow: How Medications Shape Life at Northwood

To grasp the sheer scope and complexity of medication work at Northwood, I started with a strikingly simple question: how much medication flows through…

Jun 2, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD

April 2024

Why Polypharmacy Research Matters

Long-term care facilities across the globe have earned a reputation in the medical literature as hotbeds for prescribing and polypharmacy—a phenomenon…

Apr 8, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD

March 2024

Essential Takeaways: The Realities of Polypharmacy in Long-Term Care

My one-year+ ethnographic field research during 2016-17 at Northwood in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, makes the ‘invisible’ work of polypharmacy and…

Mar 10, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD

1

1

February 2024

Abbreviations & Essential References for Real-World or Ethnographic Research on Polypharmacy

Abbreviations

Feb 1, 2024 • Olga Kits, PhD