
A shared patient safety problem worldwide is the lack of accurate and complete information about patients’ medicines when their care is transferred between healthcare settings.
In up to two-thirds of patients there are variances between the medicines they take at home and the medicines ordered on admission to hospital.
It has been estimated that around half of the medication errors that happen in hospital occur on admission or discharge from a clinical unit or hospital. Around 30% of these errors have the potential to cause patient harm.
Patients may receive new medications or even have changes made to their existing medications at times of transitions in care (upon hospital admission, a transfer from one unit to another during hospitalization, or discharge from the hospital to home or another facility).
Dr. Khalid Abulmajd
Healthcare Quality Consultant