Hospitalisation often leads to changes in medication therapy that expose patients to medication errors and unnecessary healthcare utilisation. Medication reconciliation successfully reduces these errors, but its impact on post-discharge healthcare utilisation is unclear.
The pragmatic prospective, controlled clinical trial described here investigated the effectiveness of pharmacist-led medication reconciliation, performed within routine clinical practice, on discrepancies and unplanned healthcare utilisation at and after hospital discharge in adult medical patients, hospitalised in the University Clinic Golnik in Slovenia. Patients in the intervention group (IG) were offered medication reconciliation at admission and discharge, coupled with patient counselling, while patients in the control group (CG) received standard care.
In all, 414 patients (median age 71 years, 54.3% male) participated in the trial: 225 of them in the intervention group and 189 in the control group. Fewer patients experienced a clinically important medication error in the intervention than in the control group at discharge (IG: 9.3%, CG: 95.8%; p < 0.001) and after discharge (IG: 8.1%, CG: 32.2%; p<0.001). The intervention reduced the risk of clinically important medication errors at discharge by 20-fold at discharge and 5-fold after discharge. However, the intervention had no effect on unplanned healthcare utilisation (IG: 33.9%; CG: 27.8%; p=0.227) or serious unplanned healthcare utilisation (IG: 20.3%; CG: 14.6%; p=0.160) after discharge. The risk of serious unplanned healthcare utilisation increased with increasing age, receiving more medicines upon admission and being hospitalised for an acute reason.
The results of the study show that medication reconciliation, even when conducted as part of routine clinical practice, reduces the risk of clinically important medication errors at and after discharge. However, medication reconciliation alone, without other measures, did not lead to a reduction in post-discharge healthcare utilisation. These insights into the challenges associated with medication management during hospitalisation can inform the development of services to improve the patients’ safety during transitions of care.
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