Cover: Beyond Medication Reconciliation

Beyond Medication Reconciliation

The Correct Medication List

Published in: JAMA, Volume 317, Number 20 (May 23/30, 2017), pages 2057-2058.  doi: 10.1001/jama.2017.4628

Posted on RAND.org on May 30, 2017

by Adam J. Rose, Shira H. Fischer, Michael K. Paasche-Orlow

Medication reconciliation is a major focus of quality measurement activities, and according to The Joint Commission, primary care clinicians are expected to reconcile a patient's medications at every visit. In principle, medication reconciliation is quite important; in practice, however, it has failed to have a demonstrable effect on patient outcomes. This may partly be because the lack of agreement about what constitutes medication reconciliation makes it difficult to decide when it has occurred and therefore difficult to study its effect.

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