Medication Reconciliation for Patients Over 65 Years Old : Cost Analysis of the Process Implemented in the Polyvalent Internal Medical Unit of Rennes University Hospital
Medication Reconciliation for Patients Over 65 Years Old : Cost Analysis of the Process Implemented in the Polyvalent Internal Medical Unit of Rennes University Hospital
Among the strategies to secure the patient's care path, medication reconciliation is a powerful approach for the prevention and interception of medication errors.
All medication errors are not serious. Nevertheless 4 studies show that respectively 5.6%, 5.7%, 6.3% and 11.7% of the medication errors intercepted by medication reconciliation (MR) could have had major, critical or catastrophic consequences for patients. If the consequences of a medication error have a clinical or institutional translation for the patient, they can also directly impact the hospital or caregivers, for example by extending the average length of stay or by increasing the number of consultations or readmissions.
The efficiency of the medication reconciliation approach has never been evaluated in France in comparison with standard care. Before initiating cost-effectiveness studies, we propose to conduct a micro-costing study to evaluate the production costs of this conciliation approach.
The costs are almost exclusively related to human resources and the present study will assess the time spent by the different actors involved in the process.
Inclusion Criteria:
Patients over 65 years old
Patient non-institutionalized at entry
For MR :
Exclusion Criteria: