Conciliación De Medicamentos; Discrepancias Justificadas; Discrepancias No Justificadas.

Abstract

Introduction: patient safety is one of the major challenges of health services and medication reconciliation is one of the main ways to reduce medication errors.

Objective: to characterize medication reconciliation at the Hospital de Especialidades de las Fuerzas Armadas N°1.

Methods: a cross-sectional descriptive observational study with a mixed approach was carried out in the internal medicine service; it was conducted in three stages: the first stage was diagnostic, the second to identify the professionals' knowledge on the subject and the third to identify the available resources. A non-probabilistic purposive sample was chosen that included all the patients hospitalized in the indicated period and who met the inclusion criteria.

Results: 658 medications were reconciled, identifying a total of 609 discrepancies between the patient's usual medications and those prescribed for hospitalization. Of these, 368 were unjustified discrepancies that required explanation; 86 % of the unjustified discrepancies corresponded to omissions of the medication, 9 % to the initiation of a new medication without prior justification, 5 % to different doses, 67,78 % of professionals did not have sufficient knowledge on the subject.

Conclusions: medication reconciliation at the Hospital de Especialidades Fuerzas Armadas No. 1 was characterized by a high percentage of discrepancies with a predominance of unjustified discrepancies, mainly due to omission of the medication.