SHM to Partner with 18 U.S. Hospitals to Improve Patient Outcomes through Medication Reconciliation

AHRQ Funding Supports Mentored Implementation Program to Help Hospitals Decrease Adverse Drug Events

As a partner to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM)’s Center for Hospital Innovation and Improvement will support the implementation of a second iteration of the Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement Study, or MARQUIS2. This is a mentored implementation program developed to assist hospitals and hospital clinicians with developing better ways for medications to be prescribed, recorded and reconciled accurately and safely at times of care transitions, e.g., when patients enter and leave the hospital. The ultimate goal of the study is reduce medication errors, adverse drug events and patient harm during transitions of care. The program is funded through a grant provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ).

Unintentional medication discrepancies during transitions in care represent a major threat to patient safety. Medication reconciliation enables healthcare providers – and hospitalists in particular – to avoid medication errors such as omissions, duplications, dosing errors and adverse drug interactions and should be completed at every transition of care, including hospital admission and discharge. Beginning in April 2016, SHM will begin working with 18 selected hospital sites to identify, implement and sustain medication reconciliation interventions with guidance from expert physician mentors. Key examples of intervention components include educating providers on how to take a best possible medication history, improving access to preadmission medication sources, encouraging patient ownership of medication lists and identifying patients at higher risk for adverse drug events in need of more intensive efforts.

“SHM’s mentored implementation model and extensive experience in implementing key quality improvement programs across the country will prove to be an asset in assisting the 18 hospitals in reducing potentially harmful medication discrepancies,” said Jeffrey L. Schnipper, MD, MPH, FHM Director of Clinical Research, BWH Hospitalist Service, Associate Physician, Division of General Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, and Principal Investigator for MARQUIS2. “The implementation of MARQUIS2 will
ultimately improve patient safety, teamwork, communication and care transitions at these sites over the next year, providing resources and best practices that best suit each site’s individual environment.”