Ambulatory Medication Reconciliation Following Hospital Discharge

The objective of this research is to reduce the incidence of post-discharge medication discrepancies, preventable and ameliorable ADEs, hospital readmissions, and ED visits through the use of HIT. The proposed tool will prompt primary care physicians to perform medication reconciliation at the first post-discharge outpatient visit, clearly display and organize preadmission and discharge medication regimens, and facilitate the creation of the new post-discharge medication list with just a few keystrokes. Using methodologies from prior studies at BWH, we will evaluate the intervention in a two-site RCT. The study will be conducted at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, taking advantage of our rich experience with designing and testing new informatics applications, including one for inpatient medication reconciliation.