Medication reconciliation means that the medicines the patient should be prescribed match those that are prescribed.
When a patient’s care is transferred to another clinician, a current and accurate list of medicines, including reasons for change, is given to that clinician. Some transition points are more prone to error and require special attention, such as:
- Admission to hospital
- Transfer from the emergency department to other care areas (wards, intensive care, home)
- Transfer from the intensive care unit to the ward
- From the hospital to home, aged care home or another hospital.
Unintentional changes to patients’ medicine regimens often happen during hospital admissions, and can cause patient harm during a hospital stay or after discharge:
- Between 10% and 67% of medication histories have at least one error, and up to 33% of these errors have the potential to cause patient harm
- More than 50% of medication errors occur at transitions of care
- Patients with one or more medicines missing from their discharge information are 2.3 times more likely to be readmitted to hospital than those with correct information on discharge
- 85% of discrepancies in medication treatment originate from poor medication history taking.
Matching up medicines can help ensure continuity of care, and prevent harm by reducing the opportunity for medication errors.
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