title: Potential benefit of electronic pharmacy claims data to prevent medication history errors and resultant inpatient order errors.
abstract: We sought to assess the potential of a widely available source of electronic medication data to prevent medication history errors and resultant inpatient order errors.
  
  
  
  We used admission medication history (AMH) data from a recent clinical trial that identified 1017 AMH errors and 419 resultant inpatient order errors among 194 hospital admissions of predominantly older adult patients on complex medication regimens. Among the subset of patients for whom we could access current Surescripts electronic pharmacy claims data (SEPCD), two pharmacists independently assessed error severity and our main outcome, which was whether SEPCD (1) was unrelated to the medication error; (2) probably would not have prevented the error; (3) might have prevented the error; or (4) probably would have prevented the error.
  
  
  
  Seventy patients had both AMH errors and current, accessible SEPCD. SEPCD probably would have prevented 110 (35%) of 315 AMH errors and 46 (31%) of 147 resultant inpatient order errors. When we excluded the least severe medication errors, SEPCD probably would have prevented 99 (47%) of 209 AMH errors and 37 (61%) of 61 resultant inpatient order errors. SEPCD probably would have prevented at least one AMH error in 42 (60%) of 70 patients.
  
  
  
  When current SEPCD was available for older adult patients on complex medication regimens, it had substantial potential to prevent AMH errors and resultant inpatient order errors, with greater potential to prevent more severe errors. Further study is needed to measure the benefit of SEPCD in actual use at hospital admission.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA jpevnick@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Joshua M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Pevnick
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Services, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA.
authors.forename: Katherine A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Palmer
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Services, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA UCSF School of Pharmacy.
authors.forename: Rita
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shane
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Services, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA.
authors.forename: Cindy N
authors.initials: CN
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: RAND Health, Santa Monica, CA, USA UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Douglas S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Bell
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Services, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8700 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA.
authors.forename: Frank
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Diaz
authors.affiliation: Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Research Informatics Center, Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.
authors.forename: Galen
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cook-Wiens
authors.affiliation: Department of Pharmacy Practice and Administration, College of Pharmacy, Western University of Health Sciences, Pomona, CA, USA Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences, Toronto, Canada Department of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada Veterans Affairs Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, CA, USA University Health Network, Toronto, Canada.
authors.forename: Cynthia A
authors.initials: CA
authors.lastname: Jackevicius
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D016303:Clinical Pharmacy Information Systems; D055695:Electronic Prescribing; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement; D008297:Male; D008508:Medication Errors / Q000517:prevention & control*; D059065:Medication Reconciliation; D008875:Middle Aged; D010594:Pharmacies; D064792:Pragmatic Clinical Trials as Topic; D014481:United States
keywords: adverse drug events; health information exchange; medication reconciliation