Errors Related to Medication Reconciliation: A Prospective Study in Patients Admitted to the Post CCU

Medication errors are one of the important factors that increase fatal injuries to the patients and burden significant economic costs to the health care. An appropriate medical history could reduce errors related to omission of the previous drugs at the time of hospitalization. The aim of this study, as first one in Iran, was evaluating the discrepancies between medication histories obtained by pharmacists and physicians/nurses and first order of physician.
From September 2012 until March 2013, patients admitted to the post CCU of a 550 bed university hospital, were recruited in the study. As a part of medication reconciliation on admission, the physicians/nurses obtained medication history from all admitted patients. For patients included in the study, medication history was obtained by both physician/nurse and a pharmacy student (after training by a faculty clinical pharmacist) during the first 24 hours of admission.
250 patients met inclusion criteria. The mean age of patients was 61.19 ± 14.41 years. Comparing pharmacy student drug history with medication lists obtained by nurses/physicians revealed 3036 discrepancies. On average, 12.14 discrepancies, ranged from 0 to 68, were identified per patient. Only in 20 patients (8%) there was 100% agreement among medication lists obtained by pharmacist and physician/nurse. Comparing the medications by list of drugs ordered by physician at first visit showed 12.1 discrepancies on average ranging 0 to 72.
According to the results, omission errors in our setting are higher than other countries. Pharmacy-based medication reconciliation could be recommended to decrease this type of error.