MedPath

Medicines Reconciliation at an Intensive Care Unit

Not Applicable
Conditions
Medicines Reconciliation
Intensive Care Unit
Interventions
Other: Medication reconciliation at the ICU
Other: Medication Reconciliation at the Ward
Registration Number
NCT03173690
Lead Sponsor
University Hospital, Akershus
Brief Summary

This study evaluates the effect of performing medicines reconciliation on patients admitted to an intensive care unit. Half of the patients will receive a medicines reconciliation at the intensive care unit. The other half will not. All included patients will receive medicines reconciliation after transfer to the ward.

Detailed Description

Transfer of patients from one level of care to another is known to increase the risk of medication errors. Medication reconciliation is an accepted intervention to increase the knowledge on the patients medication use, thus reducing the risk of avoidable medication errors. For patients in the intensive care unit treatment of the imminent threat is obviously the most important. Nevertheless, knowledge about previous medications are important.

Recruitment & Eligibility

Status
UNKNOWN
Sex
All
Target Recruitment
50
Inclusion Criteria
  • belonging to the hospitals intake area
  • written informed concent by the patient or his/her next to kin
Exclusion Criteria
  • Patients without next to kin
  • Not Norwegian speaking, in need of a translator
  • medication reconciliation performed earlier
  • Patients with Guillain-Barre or Myasthenia Gravis, due to long expectancy of stay
  • Short life expectancy, decided in cooperation with the physician

Study & Design

Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Study Design
PARALLEL
Arm && Interventions
GroupInterventionDescription
Intervention groupMedication reconciliation at the ICUReceive medication reconciliation at the ICU, pluss medication reconciliation at the ward
Control groupMedication Reconciliation at the WardNo intervention at the ICU, medication reconciliation at the ward
Intervention groupMedication Reconciliation at the WardReceive medication reconciliation at the ICU, pluss medication reconciliation at the ward
Primary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Number of patients with at least one discrepancy between medications listed on hospital chart and medications used at home before hospital admittanceMedicines reconciliation is performed at randomisation and within 48 hours after transmission to the ward, assessed up to 28 days after randomisation

Medications listed on the medication chart were recorded on a predefined form, this included information on dosage form, strength, dosage and administration time for each drug. The pharmacist performed medicines reconciliation either by interviewing the patient or by gathering information from other sources as the patient's general practitioner, next-to-kin or if relevant nursing home. Any deviations between the information from the medication chart and information obtained during medicines reconciliation was defined as a discrepancy.

Secondary Outcome Measures
NameTimeMethod
Retrospective evaluation on the clinical relevance of the observed medical discrepanciesRetrospectively, based on the information gathered from the day of randomisation up until 28 days after randomisation

One clinical pharmacist and one senior geriatrician retrospectively asses the potential clinical relevance of the registered discrepancies. The expert panel use the following information for each patient when assessing the clinical relevance: medication list before and after reconciliation, age, gender, reason for hospitalisation, former and current diseases and the level of care before admission

Trial Locations

Locations (1)

Akershus university Hospital

🇳🇴

Lørenskog, Akershus, Norway

© Copyright 2025. All Rights Reserved by MedPath