Date of Graduation

Fall 12-12-2014

Document Access

Project/Capstone - Global access

Degree Name

Master of Science in Nursing (MSN)

College/School

School of Nursing and Health Professions

First Advisor

danijela pavlic

Second Advisor

T. Gallo

Abstract

It is estimated, that ambulatory care settings have a 25% adverse drug events (ADEs) rate, and 39% of those event were preventable errors (Taché, Sönnichsen, and Ashcroft, 2011). Considering many adverse drug events are related to medication errors, preventing medication errors is fundamental to improving patient safety and outcomes. Medication reconciliation is the process of identifying and resolving medication discrepancies that occur, during transitions in care. Patient participation is a key component to the medication reconciliation process. With the intent to improve patient participation, a patient awareness intervention was implemented in the cardiology outpatient clinic. Data was collected using microsystem assessments, staff /patient medication reconciliation questionnaires. The intervention includes the use of patient posters, brochures and pre-appointment phone call reminders to bring in their medications. The barriers to implementing the patient awareness intervention in this clinic were in part related to resistance to change and lack of understanding of the medication reconciliation process. The barriers to this process will be further discussed, in this paper. The patient pre-appointment phone calls resulted in a 7% increase in patients bringing in their medications. As a result, the care providers were able to verify and reconcile the patient medications at the appointment.

Included in

Other Nursing Commons

Share

COinS