Article Text
Abstract
Background and aims Medication reconciliation is a time consuming safety intervention aimed at reducing the risk of medication errors at transitions of care. At the preoperative screening (POS) pharmacy technicians perform medication reconciliation in patients using more than one medication. Anesthesiologists perform medication reconciliation in patients using less than two medications to be more time efficient. To evaluate the safety of this method we performed this study.
Methods An observational prospective study was performed in elective surgery patients in the university hospital of Leiden in the Netherlands. The study was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the LUMC. Medication reconciliation was performed at the POS according to protocol and repeated at admission by a researcher. Patients admitted for at least 24 hours, ≥18 years, who visited the POS and were able to participate in a medication reconciliation interview were included between October 2016 and August 2017. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with one or more medication errors at admission (MEA). Secondary the average MEA per medication was calculated for the anaesthesiologists and the pharmacy technician.
Results In total 367 patients were included in the study, of which 166 were seen by the anaesthesiologist; in 201 patients the pharmacy technician performed medication reconciliation. The percentage of patients with at least one MEA was 47% and 53%, respectively, OR 1.12 (95%-CI 0.74–1.68). The average MEA per medication were, respectively, 0.66 and 0.37 (p = 0.001).
Conclusions After medication reconciliation by both pharmacy technicians and anesthesiologists, medication reconciliation at admission is still needed to prevent MEA.