Dive Brief:
- Hospitals that let pharmacists hold a lead role in med reconciliation see dramatically more accurate patient information during admission and discharge and fewer errors.
- Accurate med reconciliation shot up from 32.3% to 94.2% when pharmacists assembled patient medication histories and added med progress reports to patient charts at admission, according to a report by researcher Richard Mioni of Chicago's Little Company of Mary Hospital and Health Care Centers. (Mioni spoke at the American Society of Health System Pharmacists' recent conference.)
- Researchers also found that when pharmacists led reconciliation upon admission to the emergency department, accuracy went up from 32.3% at admission and 16.7% at discharge to 50 percent at admission and 25% at discharge.
Dive Insight:
Putting pharmacists at the center of the med reconciliation process makes great sense; it's not surprising to learn that once they were allowed to use their training and skills, pharmacists were able to improve the med reconciliation process substantially. Hospitals may have to staff up to get the full benefit of their involvement -- Mioni's added 3.5 FTEs in pharmacy -- but it seems likely that they'll get similarly good results.