Pharmacotherapeutic Reports as Tools for Detecting Discrepancies in Continuity of Care

The care transition is the time when more medication errors occur. The aim of this study is to analyze the usefulness of a pharmacotherapeutic report model at hospital discharge to prevent medication errors and to simplify pharmacotherapy during a patient's transition from the hospital to primary care.

Prospective study including patients diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease who were admitted to a short-stay unit or an emergency room. Relevant variables were extracted from the patients' clinical history and SPSS software was used to carry out the statistical analysis. Direct costs were also calculated.

79.3% of patients were polymedicated, 15.5% of patients were identified as nonadherent to the treatment, 12.1% were users of alternative therapies, and 10.3% had been prescribed drugs that could be monitored. In 32.8% of the reports, reference was made to the primary care pharmacists with a view to resolve any pharmacotherapeutic discrepancies. A total of 132 discrepancies were identified, the majority being related to medicinal requirements (necessary/unnecessary medication). The major cause of drug-related problems (DRPs) were prescription errors. The drugs that were mainly involved in the onset of DRPs belonged to the R group, and the degree of simplification of the pharmacotherapy was 7.6%. The total cost avoided with the reconciliation was 200€/patient.

A continuity program was implemented based on the drafting of a pharmacotherapeutic report, which allowed for detecting discrepancies and updating the patients' pharmacotherapeutic history, resulting in financial savings after its implementation.