Joint Commission will soon start scoring their National Patient Safety Goal for medication reconciliation again

Joint Commission will soon start scoring their National Patient Safety Goal for medication reconciliation again.

Institutions will be graded on how well they meet the goal to reconcile patient's med lists at any point where there could be changes...entering or leaving the hospital, nursing home, outpatient surgery clinic, etc.

Med rec might seem like nothing new. But, without a formal program in place, more than half of patients admitted to hospitals have one or more medication discrepancies...duplication, wrong dose, omission, etc. Almost half of these could cause harm...and about one in 20 could cause SEVERE harm.