Preventing harm from medications, or adverse drug events (ADEs), remains a top patient safety priority not only in hospitals but also across the continuum of care for patients. Many organizations have demonstrated that implementing medication reconciliation at all transitions in care — at admission, transfer, and discharge — is an effective strategy for preventing ADEs.
Medication reconciliation is the process of creating the most accurate list possible of all medications a patient is taking — including drug name, dosage, frequency, and route — and comparing that list against the physician’s admission, transfer, and/or discharge orders, with the goal of providing correct medications to the patient at all transition points within the hospital.
