Abstract
Introduction and Problem Statement: Many medication errors occur during
the community and hospital transition. Indeed, the World Health Organization
launched the international “High 5S” project to implement medication
reconciliation in healthcare facilities to reduce them and ensure patients a safe,
high-quality healthcare pathway. Objective: This study aimed to detect medication
errors by reconciling drug treatments and assess the relevance and feasibility
of this standardized practice within the Medical Emergency Unit of the
Teaching Pediatric Hospital of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). Methods: Patients
whose parents gave their consent at their entrance were enrolled. For
each patient, the pharmacy team completed a reconciliation form that included
the patient’s usual treatment, which was taken and in progress and received
upon admission to the medical emergency unit. Patients’ treatments
were reviewed to detect and characterize discrepancies. The data of each form
were reported and analyzed using KoboCollect, an Android application. Results:
135 records and 412 medication lines were captured over six weeks. The
average time of treatment reconciliation per patient was 57 minutes. One
thousand one hundred ninety-eight (1198) intentional discrepancies were detected,
of which 6.09% were documented. Seventy-one (71) unintentional discrepancies
were collected, including 39 omissions, 24 regimen dosing errors,
and 8 pharmaceutical form dosage errors. Forty-nine (49) unintentional discrepancies, or 69.01%, were corrected by formulated pharmaceutical interventions
toward physicians. Conclusion: Medical treatment reconciliation
during hospital admission is critical because discrepancies can compromise
the efficacy and/or safety of the patient’s hospital medication.
Admission Medication Reconciliation, Medication-Error, Medical Emergency Unit, Pediatric, Burkina Faso