Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Background and Importance Medicines reconciliation is the process of accurately listing a person’s current medicines. This is recommended when changing treatment or when changing between health levels. The Emergency Room (ER) is one way from primary health care to secondary and tertiary; as such, medicine reconciliation plays a critical role. The presence of a pharmacist in the ER may lead to better reconciliation. A pharmacist integrated part-time from July 2023 into the ER service of our hospital. Aim and Objectives We aim to measure the impact of the presence of a pharmacist in the ER regarding omission of prescription in the ER. Material and Methods An observational study was carried out following previous methodology1. In this study, we compare results from the same period (second fortnight of September) of the year 2023 vs. 2024 using Fisher test. Results In 2024, among the hundred patients, 51 were women. Age was 57.2 ± 20.7 years. Out of 100 patients, 76 had discrepancies in their electronic prescriptions, resulting in 218 omissions. Of these omissions, 26 (11.9%) were classified as unjustified. Medicines fell into ATC groups by N (19.2%, 5), A (15.4%, 4), S (15.4%, 4), C (11.5%, 3), L (11.5%,3), H (7.7%, 2), J (7.7%, 2), R (7,7%, 2) and B (3,8%, 1). Results are described in a 2023-vs-2024 fashion. We found no significant difference in sex, age or number of patients with discrepancies. There was a significant (p<0.05) difference in total number of discrepancies (121 vs. 218) and proportion of unjustified omissions (50.1% vs. 11.9%). Also found significant fall in the number of omitted drugs for nervous and cardiovascular systems. Conclusion and Relevance Although this year we found more discrepancies, those might respond to medicines that, in the past, were prescribed without taking into account the acute situation of the patient in the ER. There is a tremendous drop in unjustified omissions of prescription in the ER since the integration of a pharmacist into the ER. While there might be other factors affecting the changes measured, the presence of a pharmacist has led to a better quality of medicine reconciliation in our ER. References and/or Acknowledgements https://doi.org/10.1136/ejhpharm-2024-eahp.145 Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest
Institution: Hospital Universitari Arnau de Vilanova
Language: English
Subfield: Geriatrics and Gerontology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W4408376819