Medication errors after discharge are among the most common reasons older adults go back to hospital within a month. The list in the discharge envelope, the list at the pharmacy and the bottles in the cupboard are frequently three different lists.
What goes wrong
- A drug stopped in hospital is still in the cupboard at home, and it gets taken.
- A dose was changed and the old bottle has the old dose on the label.
- A new drug duplicates something already prescribed under a different name.
- Nobody has explained which ones are with food, which are at night, and which cannot be crushed.
What we do
On the first visit home, the caregiver lays out every bottle, compares it against the discharge list, and phones the pharmacy about anything that does not match. Old and stopped medications go in a bag for the pharmacy to dispose of. We set up a blister pack or a dosette if there is not one, and we write the schedule on the fridge in large print.
This takes an hour. It is the best-spent hour of the first fortnight.
