Joint Commission Issues Alert to Improve Medication Safety

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OAKBROOK TERRACE, Ill., Jan. 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations today issued a new Sentinel Event Alert that urges intensified attention to the accuracy of medications given to patients as they transition from one care setting to another, or one practitioner to another. The failure to reconcile medications during these transitions can cause serious patient injuries and even death.

According to the Alert, medication reconciliation should occur whenever a patient moves from one location to another location in a health care facility (for example, from a critical care unit to a general medical unit); or from one health care facility to another or to home; and/or when there is a change in the caregivers responsible for the patient. When effective medication reconciliation does not occur, patients may receive duplicative medications, incompatible drugs, wrong dosages, or wrong dosage forms among the array of potential errors. The medication reconciliation process also provides an important opportunity to assure that the patient is receiving all medications necessary to his or her care and to eliminate any medications that are no longer needed by the patient.

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Joint Commission Issues Alert to Improve Medication Safety

Last year, United States Pharmacopeia received more than 2,000 voluntary reports of medication reconciliation errors, and a 1999 Institute of Medicine report estimated that more than 7,000 deaths occur each year in hospitals alone due t...

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