Pharmacist-led reconciliation backed by draft NICE guidance
Hospital pharmacies may provide an admissions service seven days
a week |
A pharmacist should be involved in reconciling a patient's medicines as soon as possible after admission to hospital, according to draft
guidance issued by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.
In collaboration with the National Patient Safety Agency, NICE examined
all available evidence for using medicine reconciliation systems, and
agreed that using a medicine reconciliation template was effective in
preventing medication errors at the point of hospital admission.
Moreover,
the involvement of a pharmacist offers the benefit of medicine review,
in addition to medicines reconciliation.
The guidance says that information technology (IT) systems could be used
to reduce the risk of transcription errors, and improve communication
between primary and secondary care.
However, IT cannot replace the need for a trained person checking what
the patient is actually taking, and that it is prescribed appropriately.
David Cousins, head of medication safety at the NPSA, commented: “There
is already worldwide recognition that medicines reconciliation is important.
However for the first time, this guidance is acknowledging the evidence
that involving a pharmacist within a few hours of a patient’s admission
can bring about additional benefits.”
He went on to confirm that many hospital pharmacies already employ pharmacists
in admissions units, however they may need to consider extending this
service to seven days a week. He concluded: “Individual trusts
need to examine the pattern of their own medication incident reports,
to compare how many occurred when a pharmacist was involved in reconciliation,
and how many occurred when they were not.”
The
final guidance is expected to be published in December 2007. |
Hospital
Pharmacist