Inpatient medication history verification by pharmacy students

Area of Science:

• Pharmacy Practice
• Patient Safety
• Medication Reconciliation

Background:

• Accurate medication histories are crucial for effective patient care and safety.
• Medication reconciliation is a key process to prevent medication errors.
• Gaps in patient medication knowledge can lead to adverse events.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the impact of pharmacy students on improving the accuracy of patient medication histories.
• To assess the contribution of student-led medication history taking to patient record completeness.

Main Methods:

• Prospective study at a community teaching hospital involving pharmacy students.
• Students conducted thorough medication histories for internal medicine inpatients.
• Medication histories were verified by interviewing patients/family and contacting community pharmacies.

Main Results:

• Student efforts added previously undocumented prescription medications to 53.7% of charts.
• Nonprescription medications or natural products were newly documented in 51.2% of charts.
• Overall accuracy of medication histories improved for 67% of patients.

Conclusions:

• Pharmacy students effectively improved the completeness and accuracy of patient medication records.
• Student participation in medication history taking is a valuable strategy for enhancing patient safety.