The implementation of an electronic medication reconciliation tool in elective colorectal surgery identified medication discrepancies and achieved high user satisfaction.
Background/Objectives: Medication reconciliation is an essential strategy to improve patient safety, especially in polymedicated and chronic patients undergoing surgery. This study describes the implementation of an electronic medication reconciliation tool, ConciliaMed, in a multidisciplinary medication reconciliation programme performed for patients undergoing elective surgery and assesses user satisfaction with the tool since its release. Methods: A prospective observational study was carried out on “high-risk” patients undergoing colorectal surgery. In the medication reconciliation programme, ConciliaMed was mainly used to obtain an optimised and reconciled patient medication list by using the “Perioperative medication reconciliation” and the “Therapeutics equivalents” modules included in the tool. Data were registered about the reconciled medications, medication discrepancies and interventions made to optimise the reconciled medication list. Concerning the users’ satisfaction analysis, data about users’ registration and feedback were collected. Results: Seventy-three patients were enrolled in this study who were mainly polymedicated. A 10.1% of medication discrepancies were identified from the total of 553 reconciled drugs. The pharmacotherapeutic groups most involved in medication discrepancies were psycholeptics or diuretics. Regarding the optimisation of the reconciled drugs, stopping medication before surgery was the most frequent recommendation provided by the tool. According to the results of the satisfaction surveys, high overall satisfaction with the tool (4.45 ± 0.80) was reported by users. Conclusions: Stopping medication before surgery was the most common preoperative medication management recommendation provided by the tool. ConciliaMed was evaluated by pharmacists, nurses and physicians who reported a high level of satisfaction with the tool. A more comprehensive evaluation of this tool in other types of scheduled surgical patients is expected.
Ciudad-Gutiérrez et al. (Mon,) studied this question.