A Continuing Need to Reconcile Medications for Patient Safety

摘要

In working with health care organizations on ways to address The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal 8, "Accurately and completely reconcile medications across the continuum of care,"I have become aware of a "great divide" that splits them into two camps. Some organizations have an understanding of the importance of medication reconciliation and have attempted to do the best job possible. Other organizations have put processes in place with the intent of complying with the goal but have encountered general resistance from all types of care-givers involved in the process. I suspect that organizations in the first camp have observed the disastrous outcomes that can occur when medications are prescribed without knowing what else the patient is taking, not to mention sending a patient home from the hospital without a full understanding of what to take, how to take it, and what not to take-whereas organizations in the second camp have not observed the consequences when the reconciliation process did not occur or was badly performed.