A National Patient Safety Goal (NPSG) since 2005, medication reconciliation involves verifying medications and dosages as well as documenting and explaining medication changes. Medication reconciliation has been notoriously difficult to accomplish in both inpatient and outpatient settings. The Joint Commission currently does not evaluate medication reconciliation in accreditation surveys. This consensus statement, endorsed by The Joint Commission and other major professional societies, calls for recasting medication reconciliation in a patient-centered, patient safety–oriented fashion. Several key steps to develop effective and usable reconciliation tools include multidisciplinary involvement with clear roles among clinicians, patient-centered measurement strategies, and rigorous study and dissemination of implementation strategies. The findings of this consensus group will be used in the revised medication reconciliation NPSG, which will be issued in 2011.

This article describes some of the challenges in collecting, storing, coding, and sharing data to help inform patient safety work.