Advisory Reports on Strategies to Improve Medication Reconciliation, More

Implementing strategies to limit breakdowns in the medication reconciliation process and increase the accuracy of the medication histories obtained and reconciled can help foster smooth and safe transitions from one level of care to the next, concludes a December 2013 Pennsylvania Patient Safety Advisory article. According to the article, Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority analysts identified 501 reports involving breakdowns in the medication reconciliation process with event dates between November 1, 2011, and November 31, 2012. The analysts reviewed these reports to classify the events by type of reconciliation, event type, and possible causes and contributing factors. The data indicated that the majority of events occurred during admission medication reconciliation (69.3%) and most often originated during prescribing (40.3%) and transcribing (26.9%).