Antiparkinsonian medication reconciliation: how preventing medication
errors promotes therapeutic quality and safety
Abstract
Pharmacotherapy is the primary treatment for this Parkinson’s disease,
yet 70% of neurologists report that patients do not get their
medication properly when hospitalized. The aim of this work was to
implement a medication reconciliation protocol that allowed to identify
and prevent antiparkinsonian medication errors to promote therapeutic
quality and safety in daily practice. This was an interventional,
single-center, one-year, prospective study. Medication reconciliation
was performed using a three-phased check: inpatient electronic
prescription validation after assessing the outpatient medication
schedule, review of the latest Neurology report emitted by, and
pharmacist-driven interview of the patient and/or caregiver. Of 224
prescription lines involving antiparkinsonian drugs, 179 contained, at
least, one medication error (59.8%). Commission errors (91.62%) were
more frequent than omitted drugs (8.38%). The most common medication
errors were related to timing (41.90%), frequency (21.23%), and dosing
(19.55%). Clinical pharmacists prevented the erroneous administration
of 2716 antiparkinsonian doses, 60% of the total number of doses
prescribed during this period, by performing this protocol. A
significant relationship between the number of medication errors and the
type of antiparkinsonian prescribed was evidenced (p<0.05). A
contraindicated drug was prescribed in almost one-third of the episodes
(29.82%), from these, 96% were changed after pharmacists’
recommendation.