Abstract

Backgrounds: Medication errors are one of the most common errors that are associated with adverse effects on patients and may even lead to mortality. One of the methods for determining patient safety in hospitals is assessing the prevalence of medication errors. In this regard, medication reconciliation is used to improve drug safety in the treatment process. The present study was conducted on 7564 patients in the emergency department of one of the hospitals in Tehran, Iran. Methods: In total, 256 adult patients with a mean of 45 years, who had been admitted to the emergency department of a hospital in the past six months and had used at least three drugs before admission, were entered into the study. In this study, the effect of medication reconciliation on admitted patients was assessed to prevent drug errors at the time of admission by pharmacists. The main outcome measure was Type and Frequency Percentage of Drug Differences Observed during Medication Reconciliation were measured. Results: According to the results, the presence of a trained pharmacist was significantly effective in medication reconciliation for enhancing patient safety and treatment process accuracy. In addition, it was concluded that age, the condition of hospitalization, and medical center personnel had a direct relationship with the frequency of medication discrepancies. Conclusion: The presence of a trained pharmacist to perform the medication reconciliation process significantly affected the improvement of patient safety and the accuracy of the treatment process.