Drug information often wrong in patients' hospital records
Incorrect drug information is entered into patients' medical records an average of almost one and a half times per hospitalization, a study shows. Most of those discrepancies stem from errors in the medical history taken when patients are quizzed as they enter the hospital, but the potential for harm from these mistakes would be greatest after they left the hospital.
Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital followed 180 patients for two months at both hospitals to assess the accuracy of the information on the medications they were taking. They report in the Journal of General Internal Medicine that almost three-quarters of the mistakes were made when a list of drugs was being drawn up when the patients were being admitted. The remaining errors cropped up when discharge orders didn't match records from the patient's hospital stay.
Three-quarters of the problems from the wrong drug information had the potential to harm the patients after they left the hospital, which the authors said was not surprising. A mild overdose of the blood-thinner warfarin, for example, would be less dangerous while the patient was being closely monitored in the hospital than after being sent home.
"This information can help guide hospitals in determining where to focus their efforts for addressing this problem," lead author Dr. Jeffrey Schnipper of Brigham and Women's said in a statement.
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Elizabeth Cooney is a former
health reporter for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, where she also was a
business reporter and an editor. Earlier in her career, she edited medical
books and journals at Little, Brown, and worked for Boston magazine.Boston Globe Health and Science staff:
- Gideon Gil, Health and Science Editor
- Ishani Ganguli, Short White Coat blogger
If they are Joint Commission accreditied, then they must follow the NPSG-National Patient Safety Goals. This included Medication Reconcilation-on admission, transfer in level of care and at discharge.