EHRs Support Medication Reconciliation

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Reducing medication errors can be as simple as using your EHR, according to the National Institute For Healthcare Reform.

The National Institute For Healthcare Reform, along with the Center For Studying Health System Change, has released results of a study which examined 19 hospitals and their use of EHRs for medication reconciliation.

“Hospitals face increasing pressure to implement medication reconciliation — a systematic way to ensure accurate patient medication lists at admission, during a hospitalization and at discharge — to reduce errors and improve patient outcomes. Electronic health records (EHRs) can help standardize medication reconciliation, but data quality and technical and workflow issues continue to pose challenges to effective medication reconciliation in hospitals,” says the research brief.

Unintended errors occur on the records of about 70 percent of patients either at their admission or release, according to Healthcare IT News. Some estimates say at least one third of those errors result in harm to the patient.

“More than a third of the hospitals studied used a hybrid paper-electronic reconciliation process, typically because the hospitals were dissatisfied with early versions of medication reconciliation tools offered by their EHR vendors. Hospitals with more advanced EHR-based medication reconciliation functionality integrated medication reconciliation with electronic admission and discharge ordering to improve legibility, reduce data re-entry and support more patient-friendly discharge instructions,” researchers explained.

“Nonetheless, many challenges remain, including improving access to reliable medication histories, refining EHR usability, engaging physicians more fully and routinely sharing patient information with the next providers of care. Enhancing ways for key stakeholders—patient safety advocates, policy makers, researchers, EHR vendors, hospitals and clinicians—to share the best EHR designs and hospital implementation strategies will be key to realizing the potential safety and efficiency benefits of EHR-based medication reconciliation.”

Boston Children’s Hospital uses a medical reconciliation tool built into the EMR which used split screen to help doctors see discrepancies or potential adverse effects while prescribing medication. Use of this tool resulted in a 58 percent reduction in medication errors.