| During transition of care, inaccurate medication reconciliation is associated with increased risk of adverse events for patients. Older adults are the population most often affected by medication errors, and long-term care facilities struggle to accurately document medication reconciliation. Errors are more common at hospital discharge, but the critical moment for detecting and resolving them is during hospital or long-term care admission. Guided by Rosswurm and Larrabee's model for change, Rogers' diffusion of innovation, and the Multi-Center Medication Reconciliation Quality Improvement toolkit, a 6-member interdisciplinary team composed of nurses, pharmacists, and institutional stakeholders was mobilized to develop policy and practice guidelines as well as secondary documentation necessary to implement and evaluate a quality improvement initiative to address medication reconciliation. Current evidence was explored and used to develop policy and practice guidelines for medication reconciliation, then submitted to 4 scholars, including 2 practice experts, a nurse administrator, and a specialist in pharmacy, to validate content. Scholarly validation supported the premise that the developed products would be beneficial in the accurate documentation of medication reconciliation. Scholarly feedback was evaluated by comparing to current best practices for medication reconciliation. Implementation, education, and evaluation plans were developed to guide operationalization of policy and practice guidelines. This project may positively affect social change by fostering a new practice policy, practice guidelines, and supporting documents to manage medication reconciliation of long-term care residents transitioning to acute care settings, thereby improving medication safety at transitions of care for vulnerable populations. |
