Medication reconciliation at admission to surgical departments

Rationale, aims and objectives We aim to determine the prevalence of reconciliation errors ( REs ) at admission to surgery departments, report their potential clinical impact and analyse possible risk factors. Methods Prospective observational study was conducted for 8 months in a regional public hospital in S pain. The study included patients consecutively hospitalized in the D epartment of O rthopedic S urgery and T raumatology or D epartment of A ngiology and V ascular S urgery from M ay through D ecember 2010. At 24–48 hours after hospital admission, the pre‐admission pharmacological treatment of patients was compared with the medication received in hospital to identify REs , which were classified by type and potential severity. Multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted with the presence of RE as dependent variable. Results The study included 176 patients, 60.8% of whom were aged >65 years and consumed a mean of 5.55 (±4.33) drugs. 55.1% had ≥1 RE , with a mean of 3.21 REs per patient [95% confidence interval ( CI ; 2.72–3.70)]. The most frequent RE was drug omission (84.1%). No clinical risk was posed by 50.5% of the REs . Multivariate analysis evidenced fourfold higher risk of an RE in patients admitted for elective versus emergency surgery and a 1.35‐fold higher risk in patients receiving a larger number of drugs. Conclusions There was a high prevalence of REs among patients admitted to the surgical departments, most frequently the omission of a drug. The risk of an RE was higher in patients admitted for elective versus emergency surgery, as well as with the receipt of a larger number of drugs before admission.