Investigators at Harvard School of Medicine Discuss Findings in Managed Care (Economic Value of Pharmacist-Led Medication Reconciliation for Reducing…

Investigators at Harvard School of Medicine Discuss Findings in Managed Care (Economic Value of Pharmacist-Led Medication Reconciliation for Reducing Medication Errors After Hospital Discharge)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Researchers detail new data in Managed Care. According to news reporting from Boston, Massachusetts, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "Medication discrepancies at the time of hospital discharge are common and can harm patients. Medication reconciliation by pharmacists has been shown to prevent such discrepancies and the adverse drug events (ADEs) that can result from them."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the Harvard School of Medicine, "Our objective was to estimate the economic value of nontargeted and targeted medication reconciliation conducted by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at hospital discharge versus usual care. Discrete-event simulation model. We developed a discrete-event simulation model to prospectively model the incidence of drug-related events from a hospital payer's perspective. The model assumptions were based on data published in the peerreviewed literature. Incidences of medication discrepancies, preventable ADEs, emergency department visits, rehospitalizations, costs, and net benefit were estimated. The expected total cost of preventable ADEs was estimated to be $472 (95% credible interval [CI], $247-$778) per patient with usual care. Under the base-case assumption that medication reconciliation could reduce medication discrepancies by 52%, the cost of preventable ADEs could be reduced to $266 (95% CI, $150-$423), resulting in a net benefit of $206 (95% CI, $73-$373) per patient, after accounting for intervention costs. A medication reconciliation intervention that reduces medication discrepancies by at least 10% could cover the initial cost of intervention. Targeting medication reconciliation to high-risk individuals would achieve a higher net benefit than a nontargeted intervention only if the sensitivity and specificity of a screening tool were at least 90% and 70%, respectively."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Our study suggests that implementing a pharmacist-led medication reconciliation intervention at hospital discharge could be cost saving compared with usual care."

For more information on this research see: Economic Value of Pharmacist-Led Medication Reconciliation for Reducing Medication Errors After Hospital Discharge. American Journal of Managed Care, 2016;22(10):654-661,76-81. American Journal of Managed Care can be contacted at: Managed Care & Healthcare Communications Llc, 666 Plainsboro Rd, Ste 300, Plainsboro, NJ 08536, USA.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting M. Najafzadeh, Harvard Med Sch, Boston, MA, United States. Additional authors for this research include J.L. Schnipper, W.H. Shrank, S. Kymes, T.A. Brennan and N.K. Choudhry.

Keywords for this news article include: Boston, Massachusetts, United States, North and Central America, Managed Care, Hospital, Harvard School of Medicine.

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