Hospital Experiences Using Electronic Health Records to Support Medication Reconciliation
نویسنده
چکیده
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, according to a new qualitative study by researchers at the former Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). The study, which examined how 19 hospitals across the United States were using EHRs to support medication reconciliation, found that EHR-based medication reconciliation implementation was in flux as EHR vendors added or enhanced capabilities and hospitals upgraded EHR products or switched vendors. 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 EHRbased 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. 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. Hospital Experiences Using Electronic Health Records to Support Medication Reconciliation
منابع مشابه
A review of medication reconciliation issues and experiences with clinical staff and information systems.
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