Medication reconciliation on admission is critical for patient safety, the foundation for which is a robust best possible medication history (BPMH). BPMHs are labour-intensive and time-consuming. To help streamline the work associated with collecting the medication history data, Southlake Regional Health Centre (Southlake) leveraged an electronic BPMH tool, DrFirst, that integrates into the hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR).

This innovative technology, first to be used in Ontario by Southlake, is a solution that: a) Collects medication history from retail pharmacies and Connecting Ontario; b) Enables medication histories to flow directly to the EMR, bypassing manual entry and saving keystrokes; c) Leverages AI technology to assist documenting home medications. Post-implementation, we found a 64% reduction in total time to complete a BPMH, as well as thousands of keystrokes saved. This immense time savings allows clinicians to complete more BPMHs.

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