Medication Reconciliation Forms: Automatic, Comprehensive and Compliant
Two years after JCAHO mandated that hospitals take steps to avoid medication errors by reconciling medications on admission and transfer, most still have a way to go. In fact a study published by Annals of Emergency Medicine shows an 85 percent inaccuracy rate for medication lists given upon admission. According to the study, it is the lack of a good system for recording all of a patient’s medications that accounts for most medicine related errors being the costliest “disease” in America.
Hospitals are still struggling with this regulation because of error prone forms and flawed processes that make reconciling meds redundant, unreliable and easily misdocumented. At the end of the day these forms complicate the very thing they are trying to streamline.
In order to make med reconciliation successful you need 3 things:
- A complete patient history from all providers.
- A simple way to review and make adjustments.
- An intuitive form that can communicate this information to the patients' provider and other providers: online and on paper.
Information systems address many of these needs by pulling medication information together from disparate systems and creating forms, but where many have failed is embedding this activity into the workflow of patient care and the usability of the actual software. MEDHOST’s design and development is heavily guided by ED clinicians to ensure a process that brings medication information from all areas into a single, easy to read format for the providers before, during and after the patient’s ED experience.
Our reconciliation occurs with just a few touches to make any necessary modifications to the patient’s home medications after their ED visit. All medications administered in the ED, as well as any which were prescribed for inpatient or aftercare usage, are automatically included in the form to create a clear and comprehensive summary of the patients medications. This information is distributed to providers, inpatient units, the patient and their family at discharge. The reconciliation process is built into the ED clinician’s workflow to optimize compliance, patient safety and good patient care.
To see for yourself why MEDHOST is the ED clinician’s #1 choice, stop by booth # 363 at ENA or request a demo.
Patricia Daiker, RN, BC
Vice President of Marketing