Medication reconciliation is the process of reviewing a patient’s medication list for discrepancies and safety. Patients in nursing homes are at increased risk for medication discrepancies due to complexity of care and frequent transitions of care. By using Healthcare Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), researchers uncovered several factors that contribute to medication discrepancies. Interventions to improve medication safety can be targeted to one or more of the contributing factors.

This study found that higher medication regimen complexity, as measured by the Medication Regimen Complexity Index, was associated with more medication discrepancies among primary care patients. These results are consistent with prior studies showing that individuals who take more medications have a higher risk of adverse drug events.

Discrepancies between patients' recorded medication lists and the medications they were actually taking were very common in an ambulatory clinic with a fully integrated electronic health record. The study provides another example that electronic medical records alone are not a foolproof mechanism for preventing errors.