Comparison of Medication History Accuracy Between Nurses and Pharmacy Personnel

To evaluate the differences in medication history errors made by pharmacy technicians, students, and pharmacists compared to nurses at a community hospital.

One hundred medication histories completed by either pharmacy or nursing staff were repeated and evaluated for errors by a fourth-year pharmacy student. The histories were analyzed for differences in the rate of errors per medication. Errors were categorized by their clinical significance, which was determined by a panel of pharmacists, pharmacy students, and nurses. Errors were further categorized by their origin as either prescription (Rx) or over the counter (OTC). The primary outcome was the difference in the rate of clinically significant errors per medication. Secondary outcomes included the differences in the rate of clinically insignificant errors, Rx errors, and OTC errors. Differences in the types of errors for Rx and OTC medications were also analyzed. Additionally, the number of patients with no errors was compared between both groups.

The pharmacy group had a lower clinically significant error rate per medication (0.03 vs 0.09; relative risk [RR] = 0.66; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.020-0.093; P = .003). For secondary outcomes, the pharmacy group had a lower total error rate (0.21 vs 0.36, RR = 0.58; 95% CI: 0.041-0.255; P = .007), Rx error rate (0.09 vs 0.27, RR = 0.44; 95% CI: 0.071-0.292; P = .002), and OTC error rate (0.24 vs 0.46; RR = 0.52; 95% CI: 0.057-0.382; P = .009) per medication. The pharmacy group completed 20% more medication histories without Rx errors ( P = .045) and 25% more histories without OTC errors ( P = .041).

This study demonstrated that expanded use of pharmacy technicians and students improves the accuracy of medication histories in a community hospital.