In 2010, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) awarded the Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) (@SHMLive) a $1.5 million grant for a three-year Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement Study (MARQUIS). The goal of MARQUIS is to develop better ways for medications to be prescribed, documented, and reconciled accurately and safely at times of care transitions when patients enter and leave the hospital. The Society of Hospital Medicine (SHM) is a professional medical society representing more than 13,000 of the 44,000 practicing hospitalists in the U.S. dedicated to providing exceptional care to the hospitalized patient. SHM promotes exceptional care for hospitalized patients.
The AHRQ-funded Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement Study (MARQUIS) has produced an implementation manual to help hospitals improve medication reconciliation practices. These improvements can lead to reductions in negative outcomes such as inpatient adverse drug events and readmission rates, which have significant patient safety and financial implications for hospitals. Based on the experiences of five hospitals participating in a three-year project conducted by the Society of Hospital Medicine, MARQUIS identifies best practices for medication reconciliation processes throughout hospital admission, transfer and discharge. It also outlines a framework for assembling a team and developing an implementation strategy adaptable to any hospital system. The MARQUIS implementation manual explains how hospitals can implement a bundle of interventions to improve medication reconciliation using a quality improvement process. The manual includes a site assessment to help implementers understand where to start with the process. Site leaders or pharmacists can use this assessment to help gauge the patient-centeredness of the institution’s medication reconciliation process and begin customization and implementation of the various bundle components. The manual also features accompanying online resources such as a return on investment calculator to help hospitals make the business case for medication reconciliation.
Resources
- Medication Reconciliation Implementation Manual – Download the manual.
- Medication Reconciliation Implementation toolkit – Learn more about the toolkit.
- “Medication Reconciliation: A Team Approach” Conference Summary – Download the white paper.
- More resources from SHM – Visit their website.
About AHRQ
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) mission is to produce evidence to make health care safer, higher quality, more accessible, equitable, and affordable, and to work within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and with other partners to make sure that the evidence is understood and used. AHRQ priorities are described.