Keeping track of your medications is very important and with Accreditation 2016 coming this fall, there are groups across VCH who are making sure medication reconciliation, or MedRec, is taking place with expecting mothers.

“Our patients, when they’re in labour, come up from admitting with their MedRec forms already printed and the nurses, when they assess the patients, review the medication history with the patient, right then and there,” says Kara Thompson, interim clinical resource nurse in the Birth Centre at Richmond Hospital. “It works really well.”

Kara says these forms are very important for the safety of the patients.

“We want to make sure we prevent adverse drug reactions in the hospital,” she explains. “Over-the-counter meds do not show up on the form. Unless the nurses do the medication history, we wouldn’t know if they were taking these medications at home.”

“Sometimes recent dose changes in prescription medications, like insulin, aren’t on the forms so you wouldn’t know that if you didn’t take a medication history,” adds Mark Wu, a medication safety pharmacist in Richmond. “This is important.”

About three hours north of Richmond Hospital, the leadership team at Sechelt Hospital is also making sure the medications of their patients are also being kept track of.

“MedRec is important because it is a way we can prevent adverse events from occurring,” says Monique Roy-Michaeli, a clinical nurse educator with the team. “Performing MedRec helps us to get to know our patients and provides us opportunities for teaching and building supportive relationships.”

Monique adds that they have recently expanded MedRec to include direct admissions, as well as maternity and chemotherapy patients.

Currently, in Richmond in the Birth Centre, the medication reconciliation process is being done with patients during admission, transfer and discharge – every step of the way.

“So when patients go home,” says Mark, “they know which medications they’re actually supposed to continue, stop or start taking.”

“The compliance rate for medication reconciliation for admission and discharge is very high,” continues Mark. “Kara and her team have done a very good job. The compliance rate is between 85 and 90 per cent. That helps a lot of patients. It takes time to do this but it’s worth it.”

Learn more