Accessing a patient’s entire medication history is vital to patient safety and critical to meeting the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) Patient Safety Goal.  HealthCare Systems’ Medication Reconciliation meets and exceeds JCAHO’s expectation “to accurately and completely reconcile medications across the continuum of care.”  Our automated software solution also exceeds that of other providers by filling gaps common to many health care information systems. 

Medication Reconciliation provides the features of several medication management software applications.  It begins by delivering patient medication history, including drug fill and refill information, allowing physicians and nurses to assess possible drug interactions or duplicate therapy.  The integrated software solution ensures that access to past and current patient drug therapies is delivered across points of care, from admission into the medical facility or emergency room, through transfers between patient care units, to discharge. 

Within seconds of admission, clinicians are provided with a detailed report of a patient’s prior medication history, including drug strength, quantity, original fill and last refill dates.  The report alerts health care professionals to possible medication interactions, duplicate drug therapies, and drug allergies.  Within Medication Reconciliation, doctors can immediately create a drug order entry and/or allow for the entry of additional medications.  Upon discharge a similar report allows physicians to review current patient medications, allowing drug reorder and additions.  In addition to discharge prescriptions, patients can be provided education materials, including drug information.  These medication monographs can also be created in languages other than English to meet the needs of your patients. 

Inadvertent omission of home medications is the most common cause of discrepancy between actual patient medication history and the drug history reported on hospital admission orders.  Some of these omissions can cause adverse drug events and lead to potentially serious impacts to patient care.  Medication Reconciliation can not only avoid risks to patient health by eliminating duplicate drug therapies and adverse drug reactions, our medication information system can help bring your medical center into compliance with JCAHO’s 8A and 8B regulations.  Regardless of whether your patient arrives at an outpatient clinic, satellite health care facility, or emergency room, clinicians will access a complete view of their medication history. 

Compliance with JCAHO regulations is only one benefit of Medication Reconciliation.  Reducing medication errors leads directly to reduced costs associated with these errors be eliminating rework and reducing liability.  In addition to improving the accuracy of patient information, Medication Reconciliation successfully reduces workload by streamlining medication management processes and improving speed related to managing medication orders.  Studies have shown that medical facilities which have implemented systematic medication reconciliation report reducing nursing times during admission by over 20 minutes per patient and pharmacist time at discharge by over 40 minutes.  This efficiency translates to cost savings on top of accuracy, allowing your health care facility to handle more patients while enhancing patient care and improving medication safety. 

In addition to reducing costs, Medication Reconciliation integrates into any existing hospital information system, implements in less than one day, and requires minimal support from Information Technology staff, making our software application cost-effective.  Medication Reconciliation is easy to learn and use, and it’s backed by HealthCare Systems’ excellent customer support.  If you are looking to reduce costs and medication errors, all while improving the efficiency of your health care professionals, you have found the best drug history software system available.  Contact HCS immediately to learn how we can assist you or download a brochure today to learn more.