Academic Journal
Effectiveness of a pharmacist-led quality improvement program to reduce medication errors during hospital discharge
| Title: | Effectiveness of a pharmacist-led quality improvement program to reduce medication errors during hospital discharge |
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| Authors: | George D, Supramaniam ND, Abd Hamid SQ, Hassali MA, Lim WY, Hss AS |
| Source: | Pharmacy Practice, Vol 17, Iss 3, p 1501 (2019) |
| Publisher Information: | Centro de Investigaciones y Publicaciones Farmaceuticas |
| Publication Year: | 2019 |
| Collection: | Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
| Subject Terms: | Patient Discharge, Medication Reconciliation, Medication Errors, Prescriptions, Pharmacy Service, Hospital, Pharmacists, Quality Assurance Health Care, Malaysia, Therapeutics. Pharmacology, RM1-950, Pharmacy and materia medica, RS1-441 |
| Description: | 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. |
| Document Type: | article in journal/newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Relation: | https://pharmacypractice.org/journal/index.php/pp/article/view/1501; https://doaj.org/toc/1885-642X; https://doaj.org/toc/1886-3655; https://doaj.org/article/01b7f2b80e224dabab0db56c8976ec65 |
| DOI: | 10.18549/PharmPract.2019.3.1501 |
| Availability: | https://doi.org/10.18549/PharmPract.2019.3.1501 https://doaj.org/article/01b7f2b80e224dabab0db56c8976ec65 |
| Accession Number: | edsbas.74605D84 |
| Database: | BASE |
| DOI: | 10.18549/PharmPract.2019.3.1501 |
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