Measuring to Improve Medication Reconciliation in a Large Subspecialty Outpatient Practice

Abstract

To assess performance in medication reconciliation (med rec)-the process of comparing and reconciling patients' medication lists at clinical transition points-and demonstrate improvement in an outpatient setting, sustainable and valid measures are needed. An interdisciplinary team at National Jewish Health (Denver) attempted to improve med rec in an ambulatory practice serving patients with respiratory and related diseases. Interventions, which were aimed at physicians, nurses (RNs), and medical assistants, involved changes in practice and changes in documentation in the electronic health record (EHR). New measures designed to assess med rec performance, and to validate the measures, were derived from EHR data. Across 18 months, electronic attestation that med rec was completed at clinic visits increased from 9.8% to 91.3% (p <0.0001). Consistent with this improvement, patients with medication lists missing dose/frequency for at least one prescription-type medication decreased from 18.1% to 15.8% (p <0.0001). Patients with duplicate albuterol inhalers on their list decreased from 4.0% to 2.6% (p <0.0001). Percentages of patients increased for printing of the medication list at the visit (18.7% to 94.0%; p <0.0001) and receipt of the printed medication list at the visit (52.3% to 67.0%; p = 0.0074). Documentation that patient education handouts were offered increased initially then declined to an overall poor performance of 32.4% of clinic visits. Investigation of this result revealed poor buy-in and a highly redundant process. Deriving measures reflecting performance and quality of med rec from EHR data is feasible and sustainable over the time periods necessary to demonstrate change. Concurrent, complementary measures may be used to support the validity of summary measures.