RESUMO

This study sought to determine the effects of automated primary care physician (PCP) communication and patient safety tools, including computerized discharge medication reconciliation, on discharge medication errors and posthospitalization patient outcomes, using a pre-post quasi-experimental study design, in hospitalized medical patients with ≥2 comorbidities and ≥5 chronic medications, at a single center. The primary outcome was discharge medication errors, compared before and after rollout of these tools. Secondary outcomes were 30-day rehospitalization, emergency department visit, and PCP follow-up visit rates. This study found that discharge medication errors were lower post intervention (odds ratio = 0.57; 95% confidence interval = 0.44-0.74; P < .001). Clinically important errors, with the potential for serious or life-threatening harm, and 30-day patient outcomes were not significantly different between study periods. Thus, automated health system-based communication and patient safety tools, including computerized discharge medication reconciliation, decreased hospital discharge medication errors in medically complex patients.

Assuntos

Quimioterapia Assistida por Computador/métodos , Erros de Medicação/prevenção & controle , Reconciliação de Medicamentos/métodos , Pacientes Desistentes do Tratamento , Adulto , Idoso , Comunicação , Serviço Hospitalar de Emergência/estatística & dados numéricos , Feminino , Humanos , Masculino , Erros de Medicação/estatística & dados numéricos , Pessoa de Meia-Idade , Readmissão do Paciente/estatística & dados numéricos

RESUMO

The concept of quaternary prevention (P4) refers to the idea that medicine has acquired the ability to damage through the proper exercise. Family medicine or general practice has the duty of recovering the ethical values and the exercise of a profession with the doctor-patient relationship serving to people's humanity. In the fourth Congress of Family and Community Medicine, held in Montevideo (Uruguay) last March 18-21, 2015, it was established the Working Group P4 WONCA-CIMF with communication tools included as constitutive part of P4. It was also remarked that we should be wary of attempts to denature the P4, diminishing its ethic value and limiting it to a reason for cost control.