Journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics
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Medication errors on admission can persist throughout the episode of care and on to discharge leading to inappropriate management that can compromise patients' care. The aim of the study was to develop, implement and evaluate the role of pharmacist-led medication reconciliation and charting service for patients admitted to an Acute Assessment and Admission Unit via the Emergency Department in an electronic medication management environment at a metropolitan Australian hospital. ⋯ A model of a collaborative clinical pharmacist reconciliation and charting service for admitted medical patients in an Australian hospital was successfully implemented. The service was well received and has shown to save medical staff time allowing them to attend to other duties. Moreover, the pharmacist charting and reconciliation service has resulted in a statistically significant reduction in medication errors.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have published guidelines for opioid prescribing, with the goal of helping guide clinicians to make safe prescribing choices. In the form of 12 statements, the CDC offers guidance that at times is not supported by the evidence or introduces new concepts (such as a requirement that opioids improve function). Our objective was to examine the new guidelines in terms of how well they could strike the balance between keeping opioids accessible to those who need them while appropriately restricting their use. ⋯ The CDC guidelines offer some reasonable and laudable guidance, but they also make some recommendations which are not supported by current scientific evidence. We also noted that the urgent need for greater education among opioid prescribers was not addressed in the new guidelines.