Pharmacist-led medication reconciliation efforts resulted in higher levels of complete, accurate and up-to-date patient information at hospital admission and discharge, according to preliminary data reported in MedPage Today.
Researchers at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Chicago had pharmacists lead the medication reconciliation process for patients in the emergency department from September 2012 to March 2013.
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Before pharmacists took over this process, medication reconciliation was complete and accurate 32.3 percent of the time at admission and 16.7 percent of the time at discharge. Once pharmacists intervened, rates of completeness and accuracy of medication reconciliation at admission and discharge rose to 50 percent and 25 percent, respectively.
Researchers noted the most common errors in medication reconciliation were medication omission, frequency of administration, incorrect medication and dosage errors.
Researchers have received funding to continue research on this project.
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