Making inpatient medication reconciliation patient centered, clinically relevant and implementable: A consensus statement on key principles and necessary first steps
✍ Scribed by Jeffrey L. Greenwald; Lakshmi Halasyamani; Jan Greene; Cynthia LaCivita; Erin Stucky; Bona Benjamin; William Reid; Frances A. Griffin; Allen J. Vaida; Mark V. Williams
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2010
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 156 KB
- Volume
- 5
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1553-5592
- DOI
- 10.1002/jhm.849
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Medication errors and adverse events caused by them are common during and after a hospitalization.
The impact of these events on patient welfare and the financial burden, both to the patient and the healthcare system, are significant. In 2005, The Joint Commission put forth medication reconciliation as National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) No. 8 in an effort to minimize adverse events caused during these types of care transitions. However, the meaningful and systematic implementation of medication reconciliation, as expressed through NPSG No. 8, proved to be extraordinarily difficult for healthcare institutions around the country.
Given the importance of accurate and complete medication reconciliation for patient safety occurring across the continuum of care, the Society of Hospital Medicine convened a stakeholder conference in 2009 to begin to identify and address: (1) barriers to implementation; (2) opportunities to identify best practices surrounding medication reconciliation;
(3) the role of partnerships among traditional healthcare sites and nonclinical and other community-based organizations; and (4) metrics for measuring the processes involved in medication reconciliation and their impact on preventing harm to patients. The focus of the conference was oriented toward medication reconciliation for a hospitalized patient population; however, many of the themes and concepts derived would also apply to other care settings. This paper highlights the key domains needing to be addressed and suggests first steps toward doing so.