Risk factors for medication errors at admission in preoperatively screened patients

Abstract

In one-third of preoperatively screened patients, an MEA was found. The number of medications and respiratory comorbidities are risk factors for MEA in preoperatively screened patients.

Prospective Validation of a Risk Prediction Model to Identify High-Risk Patients for Medication Errors at Hospital Admission

“…This study showed that the risk prediction model developed with data from the derivation cohort 9 is not suitable to predict MEAs in patients in the validation cohort. In this study, 45.4% of included patients had at least 1 MEA.…”

“…This is substantially higher than the results of earlier studies 6,13 and 12% higher than in the derivation cohort. 9 This could be explained by the more complex patient population in the university hospital setting from the validation cohort. Cardiovascular comorbidity occurred almost twice as often (21% vs 10%), and kidney disorder and thrombosis occurred more than twice as often in the validation cohort (respectively, 8% vs 3% and 9% vs 2%).…”

“…The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with 1 or more MEAs. 9 Medication reconciliation consisted of a standardized medication interview with the patient performed by a researcher (pharmacist or pharmacist in training). The researcher was trained to work according to the medication reconciliation method used by the pharmacy technicians at the POS.…”

“…8 However, the time window between the POS and admission is usually larger than 24 hours. 9 Therefore, medication reconciliation should be repeated at admission to comply with the guideline.…”

“…Cardiovascular comorbidity was only significant in the univariate analysis. 9 From the data of this study, a risk prediction model was constructed, containing these 3 variables. Although in this study the time between POS and admission was not identified as a potential risk factor, in 67% of the patients, no difference in medication between POS and admission was found.…”