Accuracy of medication histories collected by pharmacy technicians during hospital admission

Transitioning activities that do not require clinical judgment from pharmacists to pharmacy technicians has been endorsed as a strategy to increase patient access to clinical pharmacy services. One role becoming increasingly common is using pharmacy technicians to collect the medication history within medication reconciliation processes.

To assess the ability of pharmacy technicians to gather a complete and accurate medication history during the inpatient admission process at a regional medical center.

Prospective study of unscheduled inpatient admissions at Salem Hospital. Patients where the initial information source was patient or caregiver interview, had two medication histories collected - one by a pharmacy technician through usual care processes and one by a student pharmacist with pharmacist oversight. Medication histories were then compared and a percent accuracy ranging from 0 - 100% was calculated for each of the pharmacy technician-collected histories.

A total of 101 patients were included from January 19 to March 6, 2016. Patients were on average 65 ± 19 years of age and taking 7 ± 6 medications at admission. The accuracy of the technician collected histories was 92.9 ± 14.2%. Accuracy was not impacted by age, number of medications, or admitting shift (all p > 0.05).

Pharmacy technicians can collect complete and accurate medication histories. Results add to the growing body of literature supporting an expanded role for pharmacy technicians in medication reconciliation processes.