Education

Reconciling Medications

The Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors, together with the Massachusetts Hospital Association, is hosting two collaboratives on Safe Practices to Promote Patient Safety in the areas of Reconciling Medications and Communicating Critical Test Results. The Coalition, through consensus groups, has identified safety practices based on the literature and national models to address these clinical problems and reduce related errors. A two-year program including collaborative learning opportunities and other support to facilitate and promote safe practice implementation for the following two topic areas is underway.

The first learning collaborative to support hospital teams in the Reconciling Medications initiative will be held April 11. The program objectives, audience, agenda, and registration materials are provided below.

Program Objectives:
This program is designed to engage teams from Massachusetts hospitals in improving medication safety by adopting a set of identified safe practices for reconciling medications at patient interfaces.

• Identification of a set of safe practices to reconcile medications.
• Examples of errors that can be prevented by these practices.
• Potential for impact through the adoption of the reconciling practices.
• Improvement lessons from local and national models, including concrete strategies and useful tools.
• Organizational barriers to implementation, and how to overcome them.
• Developing an action plan for implementation, with aims, measures, time frames and role responsibilities clearly defined.

• Assess medication errors and harm associated with incomplete medication lists at their institution.
• Describe the reconciling medications process.
• Implement a reconciling medication process.
• List at least two implementation strategies that are effective in reconciling medications.

1. Physician
2. Nursing leader
3. Staff nurse
4. Pharmacy leader
5. Pharmacy support
6. Patient safety/QI representative
7. Staff education representative

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