Contribution of Different Patient Information Sources to Create the Best Possible Medication History

Obtaining the best possible medication history is the crucial step in medication reconciliation. Our aim was to evaluate the potential contributions of the main data sources available - patient/caregiver, hospital medical records, and shared electronic health records - to obtain an accurate 'best possible medication history'.

An observational cross-sectional study was conducted. Adult patients taking at least one medicine were included. Patient interview was performed upon admission and this information was reconciled with hospital medical records and shared electronic health records, assessed retrospectively. Concordance between sources was assessed. In the shared electronic health records, information was collected for four time-periods: the preceding three, six, nine and 12-months. The proportion of omitted data between time-periods was analysed.

A total of 148 patients were admitted, with a mean age of 54.6 ± 16.3 years. A total of 1639 medicines were retrieved. Only 29% were collected simultaneously in the three sources of information, 40% were only obtained in shared electronic health records and only 5% were obtained exclusively from patients. The total number of medicines gathered in shared electronic health records considering the different time frames were 778 (three-months), 1397 (six-months), 1748 (nine-months), and 1933 (12-months).

The use of shared electronic health records provides data that were omitted in the other data sources available and retrieving the information at six months is the most efficient procedure to establish the basis of the best possible medication history.

Shared electronic health records should be the preferred source of information to supplement the patient or caregiver interview in order to increase the accuracy of best possible medication history of the patient, particularly if collected within the prior six months.