Medication Reconciliation Technology to Improve Quality of Transitional Care

For each medication discrepancy, the study team will reach consensus about potential for harm and potential severity of harm. The study team will adopt the following framework: little or no confidence (e.g., omission of multivitamin); slight to modest confidence (e.g., docusate 200 mg every morning, instead of 100 mg twice daily); less than 50% chance but close call (e.g., omission of as-needed enema at discharge); more than 50% chance but close call (e.g., omission of fluticasone twice daily at discharge); or strong confidence (e.g., omission of as-needed haloperidol).

We will conduct a before-and-after survey of providers. Providers will be surveyed about satisfaction with care, managing medications, and usefulness of local information systems in managing medications.

The inpatient geriatrics consultation service has begun calling patients who received geriatrics consultation and were subsequently discharged to home. The calls are made by telephone within 72 hours of discharge. Patients are asked eight to ten questions, addressing satisfaction with care, receipt of information about medications, and adherence to medications.

We will track and report hours required for several parts of the development and implementation, as follows: hours required for new technical development; and hours providers spend in learning about system and how to use it.

Fraction of intervention admissions for which Web-based medication list was reviewed or modified. Mean duration of use of Web-based application. Fraction of intervention admissions, transfers, and discharges for which new medication list was used to order medications. Fraction of medications on medication list that were ordered on admission, transfer, and discharge. Timing of when medication reconciliation occurred.

At discharge, we will assess for unintentional medication discrepancies at discharge. At ambulatory followup, we will assess whether the medications should have been prescribed at discharge. When a patient is discharged from the hospital and resumes ambulatory care, the patient is expected to adhere to the discharge prescriptions. Each discharge will be reviewed by members of the study team, to determine, for each medication listed on the pre-admission medication list but not prescribed at discharge, whether the discrepancy was intentional or unintentional.

We will count deaths and will identify and assess adverse drug events (ADEs). The following kinds of triggers will be used to identify encounters that might reflect ADEs: diagnostic codes for diagnoses associated with ADEs, potential ADEs, or medication errors; use of specific drugs suggesting that an ADE may have occurred; potentially dangerous drug combinations; combinations of drugs and symptoms (e.g., angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitor and cough); combinations of diagnoses and drugs; and combinations of drugs and miscellaneous.

Mean number of erroneous discrepancies between pre-admission and ambulatory followup