On-Demand Learning Lab: Engaging Your Pharmacy Team to Improve the Medication Reconciliation Process-On-Demand Webinar - Engaging Your Pharmacy Team to Improve the Medication Reconciliation Process

On-Demand Webinar - Engaging Your Pharmacy Team to Improve the Medication Reconciliation Process

Video Transcription

Video Summary

NACU hosted a Live Learning Lab webinar on engaging pharmacy teams to improve medication reconciliation. Leapfrog’s Missy Danforth described the scale of medication harm: adverse drug events are common during hospitalization and after discharge, often driven by medication discrepancies that can affect up to 70% of patients at transitions of care. Leapfrog’s hospital survey uses an NQF-endorsed measure (NQF 2456) developed by Dr. Jeffrey Schnipper to report unintentional discrepancies per patient. Participating hospitals sample 30 adult patients and have a pharmacist or certified pharmacy technician obtain a “gold standard” medication history, then compare it with admission and discharge orders to count discrepancies. Leapfrog provides free tools (worksheets, flowcharts, training materials, and an Excel calculator) to support standardized data collection and quality improvement.<br /><br />Dr. Schnipper explained how hospitals can use these data to launch QI initiatives: distinguish history-taking errors from reconciliation errors, collect additional unit/service and intervention details, and create ROI cases for leadership. He emphasized high-impact interventions—best possible medication histories in the ED and pharmacist-led discharge reconciliation/counseling for high-risk patients—supported by training, workflow mapping, HIT improvements, and sustainability planning. He also highlighted the MARQUIS toolkit and a 14‑month collaborative program to scale implementation.

Keywords

medication reconciliation

pharmacy team engagement

adverse drug events

medication discrepancies

transitions of care

Leapfrog Hospital Survey

NQF 2456 measure

best possible medication history (BPMH)

MARQUIS toolkit