Pharmacists and medication reconciliation: a review of recent literature

Background: Adverse drug event (ADE) errors are common and costly in health care systems across the world. Medication reconciliation is a means to decrease these medication-related injuries and increase quality of care. Research has shown that medication reconciliation accuracy and efficiency improved when pharmacists are directly involved in the process. Objective: We review studies examining how pharmacists impact the medication reconciliation process and we discuss pharmacists’ future roles during the medication reconciliation process and then barriers pharmacy staff may face during this critical process. Methods: A comprehensive literature search from MEDLINE and manual searching of bibliographies was performed for the time period January 2012 through November 2018. Conclusion: Although the issue of rising costs and injury due to medication errors in our health care system are not solvable via medication reconciliation alone, it is the first and perhaps most critical piece of the medication management puzzle. As such, numerous organizations have called for pharmacists to expand their roles in the medication reconciliation process due to their expertise in medication management.