Effectiveness of an educational intervention in improving the patient medication reconciliation in the emergency department

Abstract

Patient safety has become a key component of quality of care, progressively relevant in recent years for patients and their families, as well as healthcare professionals aiming to deliver safe and efficient healthcare. Medication error and adverse drug events cost billions of dollars and are detrimental to the provider-patient relationship. 1,2 On average, hospitalised patients are subject to at least one medication error per day. More than 40% of medication errors are believed to result from inadequate reconciliation in handoffs during admission. 3 A multitude of factors-such as patients' lack of knowledge of their medications, physician and nurse workflows, and lack of integration of patient health records across the continuum of care-all contribute to a lack of a complete medication reconciliation which, in turn, creates the potential for error. One of the main reasons for medication error is patient transfer from one place to another to receive