Title : Reconciliation of geriatric drug treatments
Abstract:
Introduction: The reconciliation of medicinal treatments is a multi-professional and interactive process, which guarantees continuity of care by integrating into a new prescription the patient's current treatments taken before hospitalization and admission to secure therapeutic care, particularly in elderly patients. Its adoption in hospitals is expanding despite persisting challenges.
Methodology: A retrospective analysis was carried out on 35 medication reconciliation sheets, covering three types of care units: general surgery, neurological surgery department, and medical department. orthopedic surgery. Data collected on excel file covering a period of two months (March 2024 – April 2024). The difficulties encountered when collecting information on patient treatments were identified, and solutions were explored based on the analysis of feedback from other establishments.
Results: Among the problems identified, the lack of collaboration between nurses and the unreliable nature of entry documents as well as problems with transcription of medications have been major obstacles. In addition, the time-consuming management of the process, with a pharmacist in charge of all tasks, complicated the implementation. Cognitive disorders of patients have made it difficult to collect reliable information on out-of-hospital treatments.
Discussion and Conclusion: An internal protocol has been put in place to compensate for the lack of standardization, with increased efforts in terms of communication with the medical and healthcare teams in order to reduce delays and improve the quality of information. The formalization of the approach by an expert company would make it possible to standardize practices to improve the handling.