Collaborative Drugs Management "Reduces Errors By Nearly 80%"

A new, more collaborative approach to medicines management for hospitalised patients has been shown to reduce medication errors by nearly 80%.

The study, reported in the British Medical Journal Quality & Safety, says this collaborative approach between doctors and hospital pharmacists resulted in a 78% reduction in the number of patients experiencing medication error at admission and a 79% reduction at discharge.

It also entirely eliminated potentially severely harmful medication errors, compared with an incidence of 6% of patients receiving the standard model of care. And it improved the quality of prescribing in older patients by facilitating better communication about their drugs, which is a particularly important factor given the increase in polypharmacy among older patients, say the authors.

The study was conducted by researchers from the School of Pharmacy and Pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin in collaboration with the medical directorate and the pharmacy department at Tallaght Hospital, South Dublin.