Medication Harmony: A Framework to Save Time, Improve Accuracy and Increase Patient Activation

Incompletely reconciled medication lists contribute to prescribing errors and adverse drug events. Providers expend time and effort at every point of patient contact attempting to curate a best possible medication list, and yet often the list is incomplete or inaccurate. We propose a framework that builds upon the existing infrastructure of a health information exchange (HIE), centralizes data and encourages patient activation. The solution is a constantly accessible, singular, patient-adjudicated medication list that incorporates useful information and features into the list itself. We aim to decrease medication errors across transitions of care, increase awareness of potential drug-drug interactions, improve patient knowledge and self-efficacy regarding medications, decrease polypharmacy, improve prescribing safety and ultimately decrease cost to the health-care system.