Comparison of electronic pharmacy prescription records with manually collected medication histories in an emergency department.

Fung K, Kayaalp M, Callaghan FM, McDonald CJ

Ann Emerg Med. 2013 Sep;62(3):205-11. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2013.04.014. Epub 2013 May 18.

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Abstract:

STUDY OBJECTIVE Medication history is an essential part of patient assessment in emergency care. Patient-reported medication history can be incomplete. We study whether an electronic pharmacy-sourced prescription record can supplement the patient-reported history. METHODS In a community hospital, we compared the patient-reported history obtained by triage nurses to a proprietary electronic pharmacy record in all emergency department (ED) patients during 3 months. RESULTS Of 9,426 triaged patients, 5,001 (53%) had at least 1 (mean 7.7) prescription medication in the full-year electronic pharmacy record. Counting only recent prescription medications (supply lasting to at least 7 days before the ED visit), 3,688 patients (39%) had at least 1 (mean 4.0) recent medication. After adjustment for possible false-positive results, recent electronic prescription medication record enriched the patient-reported history by 28% (adding 1.1 drugs per patient). However, only 60% of patients with any active prescription medications from either source had any recent prescription medications in their electronic pharmacy record. CONCLUSION The electronic pharmacy prescription record augments the manually collected history. Copyright © 2013 American College of Emergency Physicians. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Fung K, Kayaalp M, Callaghan FM, McDonald CJ. Comparison of electronic pharmacy prescription records with manually collected medication histories in an emergency department. 
Ann Emerg Med. 2013 Sep;62(3):205-11. doi: 10.1016/j.annemergmed.2013.04.014. Epub 2013 May 18.

PMID | PMCID | URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0196064413003521