Perspectives From Academic and Practice Leaders on Nursing Student's Education and Role in Medication Reconciliation

Medication reconciliation is a complex process that occurs during hospitalization at admission, transfer and discharge and at each outpatient clinic visit. Despite numerous quality improvement initiatives implemented by healthcare facilities nationwide to refine the process, medication errors still occur. Medication reconciliation processes are institution specific and undergo constant refinement. Few reports are available on the nursing student's role in this contemporary safety process.

The purpose of this study was to assess the nursing student's education and role in the medication reconciliation process from the perspective of academic faculty and hospital nursing leadership.

Electronic surveys were sent to 90 nurse academic and 160 nurse practice leaders in Ohio during the first quarter of 2015. Surveys were completed by 47% of the academic leaders (42/90) and 23% of the practice leaders (42/160). Survey questions focused on the nursing curriculum regarding medication reconciliation and the student nurse's role in the process during clinical experiences.

Faculty from 75% of the schools of nursing reported that the medication reconciliation curriculum was mostly taught in the classroom. Only 24.4% of the schools taught medication reconciliation in an interdisciplinary context with pharmacy students. During clinical time, 33% of faculty reported that students had direct involvement and 33% had the opportunity to observe the process of medication reconciliation. The majority (80%) of practice nurse leaders reported that their facility does not permit nursing students to perform medication reconciliation. Although medication reconciliation processes are specific to each organization, only 52.8% of the practice leaders reported that they provide faculty or nursing students' formal training on their hospital's medication reconciliation policy or site-specific process.

Students are not receiving adequate education or opportunity to practice medication reconciliation during clinicals. Future alignment of academia, and practice efforts on medication reconciliation are needed.