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Medications are integral for preventing and curing illness, yet medication errors can also be a cause of harm. For example, in 1993 over 7000 patients died in the United States as a result of a medication error. As more medications become available for use, the simultaneous use of multiple medications by a single patient is more likely. It’s important that everyone involved in a patient’s care, especially the patient, be aware of the medications that a patient should be taking. This becomes difficult when multiple clinicians are prescribing medications to the patient. Therefore, curating the home medication list for accuracy is crucial. This occurs through the process of medication reconciliation, where the aim is to identify the most accurate list of medications that a patient is taking and prevent discrepancies. Quantitatively measuring the performance of medication reconciliation has become easier in the age of electronic health records (EHRs). Determining the patient-facing quality and accuracy of that process remains difficult, as it requires significant time and effort to complete manual chart audits. The rising costs of healthcare and narrow margins for healthcare organizations preclude them from dedicating resources to manually review the accuracy of medication lists. As a result, patients and families are frequently sent home with inaccurate medication lists.
A review of the literature and regulatory standards as they relate to medication reconciliation shows that our current standards are low. The Joint Commission states that “a good faith effort to collect this information is recognized as meeting the intent of the requirement” for medication reconciliation. Yet, although many regulatory bodies, including the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, encourage good medication reconciliation, the measurement and reporting of the process remains largely quantitative. Tools and reports within EHRs can easily measure the frequency of “clicking the button.” Learn how healthcare organizations can take the next step to provide safer management of medications to their patients using Amazon Web Services (AWS).