Medication Reconciliation

Medication reconciliation is an important part of every encounter, whether an office visit or a telephonic outreach. It helps to ensure that the patient is taking the appropriate medication prescribed, not only by you, but the patient’s supporting physicians as well.

By performing this process at every office visit, it helps to mitigate adverse drug events (ADEs) which could unintentionally harm the patient.

Medication reconciliation involves a 3-step process:

     1. Verification (collecting accurate medication history)
     2. Clarification (ensuring all medications and doses are appropriate)
     3. Reconciliation (documenting every single change including dosing amounts and      making certain all ‘check out’)

TIPS

• Be certain to ask if the patient is taking any over the counter medications, herbals, vitamins,
supplements, inhalers, creams, lotions, CBD oil, or anything that is not prescribed

• Check the EMR against the information the patient provides

• Getting your patients into the habit of brining their medications with them to their check-ups is an asset to ensuring you are reconciling all medications

• Asking patients when they take their medications (i.e. time of day/week/month) is helpful if there are medications that are used infrequently

• Asking patients about the types of doctors that prescribe medications for them (i.e. does your arthritis doctor prescribe any medications for you?)

• Asking patients about the routes of administration other than oral medicines as patients often forget to mention creams, ointments, eye drops, nebulizers, inhalers

Source:
www.ahrq.gov
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Approved Quality Committee – 1/8/2020