A study designed to reduce the medication errors common in hospital discharge summaries has been recognised as the best research article published in the Medical Journal of Australia during 2017.
The trial at Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital compared standard medication discharge summaries with those completed by pharmacists in more than 800 patients.
The main outcome measures were rates of medication errors, including omitted drugs, incorrect doses or dose frequency, incorrect or unnecessary drugs, or an incorrect route of administration, as identified by an independent assessor.
The study found the error rate in standard discharge summaries was 61.5% compared to just 15% in those prepared by a pharmacist.
“The absolute risk reduction was 46.5% (95% confidence interval [CI], 40.7-52.3%), yielding an NNT of 2.2 (95% CI, 1.9-2.5) to prevent one discharge summary containing at least one medication error,” the study said.
“The absolute risk reduction for a discharge summary containing a high or extreme risk error was 9.6% (95% CI, 6.4-12.8%), with an NNT of 10.4 (95% CI, 7.8-15.5).”