Value of Medication Reconciliation in Reducing Medication Errors on Admission to Hospital

Implementation of an older adult epilepsy clinic utilizing pharmacist services

BACKGROUND

Antiseizure medications are commonly associated with adverse effects including behavioral and cognitive issues, drug interactions, idiosyncratic reactions, and long-term complications, which can lead to non-adherence. At the same time, there are limited reports describing multidisciplinary models of epilepsy care that include pharmacists.

OBJECTIVE

To describe the pharmacist services in an epilepsy clinic for older adults and document the patient care delivered using this design.

PRACTICE DESCRIPTION

A subspecialty older adult epilepsy clinic, embedded within a neurology clinic, in an urban academic medical center.

PRACTICE INNOVATION

Integration of pharmacy services to document medication history, provide medication reconciliation, identify medication-related problems, and make interventions.

EVALUATION METHODS

Data were retrospectively evaluated for the patients seen by the pharmacist and epilepsy team between July 2019 and January 2021. Data were summarized with descriptive statistics.

RESULTS

Fifty-eight patients with a total of 94 encounters (70.7% of all specialty clinic visits) were seen collaboratively by the physician and the pharmacist. The majority of patients were African American (87.9%), aged 63.7 ± 8.2 years, and more frequently male (58.6%), and a high proportion had some baseline memory loss or diagnosis of dementia (53.4%). Medication reconciliation occurred in 94 (100%) encounters. More than half the encounters required reconciliation to the existing medication list by adding medication (55.3 % of encounters) or deleting mediations (53.2% of encounters). Presence of adverse effects was the most common medication-related problem identified (23.4%). Resolutions to the medication-related problems were also reported.

CONCLUSION

The population of older adults with epilepsy is expected to increase in prevalence. Pharmacists are able to impact medication-related problems in a vulnerable, high-risk patient population. The multidisciplinary model we describe here can be used as a template to provide care in ambulatory care practices involving other neurology specialties with a high proportion of older adult patients.

An analysis of fatal iatrogenic therapeutic errors reported to United States poison centers

OBJECTIVE

This is a descriptive study evaluating fatal iatrogenic and in-hospital medication errors reported to United States poison centers.

METHODS

A retrospective evaluation of the National Poison Data System from 2000-2017 of all therapeutic errors with a scenario coded as iatrogenic/healthcare professional or occurring in a healthcare facility. Death abstracts were reviewed for details of the exposure and therapeutic error scenarios were recoded or added to the case as appropriate. Cases, where death was considered not related to the exposure, were excluded. Additionally, we created one additional scenario (rate-related) and one additional route of administration (intrathecal) to better describe the cases.

RESULTS

A total of 172 cases were evaluated. The majority of the patients were female (52.3%) with a median age of 58.5 years (range: 2 days to 96 years). The most commonly reported medication error was "other incorrect dose" (22.7%) followed by other/unknown error (15.1%). The route of exposure was primarily parenteral (54.9%), followed by ingestion (30.2%), then intrathecal (7.0%). The most common medications were cardiac drugs, chemotherapeutics, opioids, anticoagulants, and sedative-hypnotic/antipsychotics.

CONCLUSIONS

Iatrogenic and in-hospital medication errors have been studied extensively with goals to reduce their occurrence. Specific controls to prevent incorrect dosing routes, 10-fold overdoses, and incorrect intrathecal administration have been instituted. Despite interventions, all three of these therapeutic errors continued to occur in 2017, suggesting that more preventive controls should be instituted.

Investigating the Frequency and Nature of Medication-Related Problems in the Women’s Health Unit of an Australian Tertiary Teaching Hospital

Background: Despite the large burden medication-related morbidity and mortality places on the Australian health care system, there is little known about the extent of this problem in a women’s health (obstetric and gynecology) setting. Objective: Determine the frequency and nature of medication-related problems (MRPs) occurring in a women’s health unit (WHU) of an Australian teaching hospital. Methods: A prospective audit of consecutive cases of patients treated in the WHU at a tertiary-level teaching hospital was undertaken by a clinical pharmacist over a 5-week period. Data collected included the following: patient characteristics, type of MRP (using a modified version of the Hepler-Strand classification system), medication involved (according to the World Health Organisation Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system), and clinical significance (using a 2-level severity index). Results: A total of 454 potential MRPs were identified over the 5-week period among 241 patients. A total of 39 MRPs (8.6%) identified were deemed to be of moderate/high clinical significance. The highest number of MRPs (221; 49%) was identified among women admitted following a cesarean delivery, with 83 of 85 women in this group experiencing at least 1 MRP. Additional factors associated with an increased likelihood of patients experiencing a MRP included increased age, length of hospital stay, and number of regular medications taken prior to and during admission ( P < 0.05). Conclusion: The widespread nature of identified MRPs in this setting suggests that various approaches to minimizing these problems and mitigating the associated burden on the health care system are warranted.