A Correlation of a Medication-Focused Risk Score to Medication Errors at Discharge.

Area of Science:

• Pharmacology
• Patient Safety
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Pharmacy transitions-of-care services are crucial for reducing medication errors post-hospitalization.
• Current risk assessment tools often focus on readmissions, not specific medication-related risks.
• There is a need for tools specifically designed to identify patients prone to medication errors.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and internally validate a novel medication-focused risk tool, the UCSD-Rx risk score.
• To compare the UCSD-Rx risk score's performance against the LACE+ index for predicting 30-day readmissions.
• To assess the UCSD-Rx risk score's ability to predict medication errors at hospital discharge.

Main Methods:

• The study involved two phases for internal validation of the UCSD-Rx risk score.
• Phase I compared the UCSD-Rx score and LACE+ index in predicting 30-day unplanned hospital readmissions.
• Phase II used logistic regression to evaluate the UCSD-Rx score's prediction of medication errors at discharge.

Main Results:

• Phase I showed comparable performance between UCSD-Rx (C-statistic, 0.66) and LACE+ index (C-statistic, 0.69) in predicting readmissions.
• Phase II demonstrated that an increasing UCSD-Rx risk score significantly predicted medication errors at discharge (OR, 1.068; P = .035).

Conclusions:

• The UCSD-Rx risk score is a viable tool for pharmacists to identify high-risk patients.
• This tool can enhance the targeting of transitions-of-care services to prevent medication errors.
• The UCSD-Rx score offers a medication-centric approach to improving patient safety during care transitions.