Research Activities, November 2012: Announcements: AHRQ offers free toolkit to strengthen medication reconciliation

Research Activities, November 2012: Announcements: AHRQ offers free toolkit to strengthen medication reconciliation

AHRQ offers free toolkit to strengthen medication reconciliation

A free toolkit to help acute care and post-acute care facilities evaluate and improve their current medication reconciliation process is now available from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality at http://www.ahrq.gov/qual/match/. Medications at Transitions and Clinical Handoffs (MATCH) Toolkit for Medication Reconciliation can help facilities reduce patient harm due to adverse drug events or medication errors.

MATCH offers the following advantages:

• Promotes compliance with The Joint Commission's National Patient Safety Goal for maintaining and communicating accurate patient medication information.
• Can lead to better care transitions and fewer unnecessary readmissions by helping to ensure patients receive the right medication in the right dose at the right time.
• Provides a framework to capture complete, accurate medication information through electronic health records.
• Enables building a medication reconciliation process from scratch or redesigning an existing process.

MATCH features a comprehensive work plan with procedural guidelines and flowcharts, modifiable templates, pilot-tested recommendations, and other resources to help your facility improve its medication reconciliation process step by step.

For a free toolkit, please Email AHRQpubs@ahrq.hhs.gov or call 1-800-358-9295.