Continuity of care with a one-click medication history program: Patient's in-home medications at a glance

Background & aims: The timely and complete identification of patients’ own medications (POMs) at the point of initial encounter at an emergency department (ED) or during hospital admission has been challenging globally. Hence, we aimed to make the process of complete identification of POMs more accurate and efficient, thereby allowing hospitals and emergency departments to serve incoming patients better. Methods: We developed a new program called “Patient's In-home Medications at a Glance”, which was built in a homegrown health information system (BESTCare®) to reduce the time taken by ED clinicians to identify POMs. As the system was linked to nationwide personal medication records provided by the Healthcare Insurance Review and Assessment Service in South Korea, it enabled rapid collection and compilation of patients’ detailed medication history for a year by any healthcare providers. Results: The program development was described with a screen layout and the impact on the time required to identify patients’ medication list was evaluated. Pearson's chi-squared test showed that the timely identification of POMs within 24 h of an ED visit significantly improved from 26 patients in the four-month pre-intervention period to 776 patients in the three-month post-intervention period (p < 0.001). Conclusion: We believe that the program improved the decision-making process in the ED to establish subsequent care plans and supported healthcare professionals as an effective and responsible hands-off process.