My SciELO
Services on Demand
Journal
Article
Indicators
- Cited by SciELO
- Access statistics
Related links
- Cited by Google
- Similars in SciELO
- Similars in Google
Share
Pharmacy Practice (Granada)
On-line version ISSN 1886-3655Print version ISSN 1885-642X
Abstract
GEORGE, Doris et al. Effectiveness of a pharmacist-led quality improvement program to reduce medication errors during hospital discharge. Pharmacy Pract (Granada) [online]. 2019, vol.17, n.3, 1501. Epub Nov 25, 2019. ISSN 1886-3655. https://dx.doi.org/10.18549/pharmpract.2019.3.1501.
Background:
Patients requiring medications during discharge are at risk of discharge medication errors that potentially cause readmission due to medication-related events.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to develop interventions to reduce percentage of patients with one or more medication errors during discharge.
Methods:
A pharmacist-led quality improvement (QI) program over 6 months was conducted in medical wards at a tertiary public hospital. Percentage of patients discharge with one or more medication errors was reviewed in the pre-intervention and four main improvements were developed: increase the ratio of pharmacist to patient, prioritize discharge prescription order within office hours, complete discharge medication reconciliation by ward pharmacist, set up a Centralized Discharge Medication Pre-packing Unit. Percentage of patients with one or more medication errors in both pre- and post-intervention phase were monitored using process control chart.
Results:
With the implementation of the QI program, the percentage of patients with one or more medication errors during discharge that were corrected by pharmacists significantly increased from 77.6% to 95.9% (p<0.001). Percentage of patients with one or more clinically significant error was similar in both pre and post-QI with an average of 24.8%.
Conclusions:
Increasing ratio of pharmacist to patient to complete discharge medication reconciliation during discharge significantly recorded a reduction in the percentage of patients with one or more medication errors.
Keywords : Patient Discharge; Medication Reconciliation; Medication Errors; Prescriptions; Pharmacy Service; Hospital; Pharmacists; Quality Assurance; Health Care; Malaysia.