JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert: Medication Reconciliation to Prevent Errors

JCAHO issued a Sentinel Event Alert on January 27, 2006, advising health care providers to perform medication reconciliations at every transition of care in which new medications are ordered. Medication reconcilition should be performed to avoid medication errors such as omissions, duplications, dosing errors, or drug interactions.

The alert states that the medication reconciliation process should comprise five steps: 1) develop a list of current medications; 2) develop a list of medications to be prescribed; 3) compare the medications on the two lists; 4) make clinical decisions based on the comparison; and 5) communicate the new list to appropriate caregivers and to the patient.

For more details read the full Sentinel Event Alert, "Using medication reconciliation to prevent errors".

Tags: JCAHO, health care, health