Promoting medication safety for older adults upon hospital discharge: guiding principles for a medication discharge plan.
Effective communication is essential to reduce the risk of adverse drug events (ADEs) and other patient safety incidents during transitions of care from hospital to community settings. This article describes an iterative, consensus-based process to create a standardized medication discharge plan (MDP) for older adults and to identify essential principles to support MDP implementation, including patient prioritization, MDP format, and mode of transmission.