Medication Management in Primary Care: A Structured Review Checklist for Primary Care Providers

Abstract

Background: Medication management is an important aspect of health care to ensure patient safety and outcomes. Incomplete overview of medications is main cause of medication errors and discrepancies. The consequences of not completing medication management and reconciliation are associated with the wellness of the patients and result in increased health care cost. It is essential to improve medication management process to decrease medication discrepancies, minimize the prevalence of medication-related problems, increase patient health outcomes, and reduce health care cost in primary care settings. A Structured Review Checklist was recommended during routine comprehensive medication review as a process for evaluation of therapy, assessment of patients’ medication adherence, and resolution of medical record discrepancies. Purpose: The purpose of this DNP project is to evaluate primary health care providers’ perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention of use regarding the Structured Review Checklist to further develop key recommendations and tools for use by primary care providers to reduce medication discrepancies and medication errors as well as increase health outcomes and patient satisfaction. Method: The design is descriptive cross-sectional. The online survey developed with Qualtrics software was sent to Practice Managers at Banner Health Clinics to be distributed to targeted primary care providers. Their perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention of use regarding the Structured Review Checklist was assessed using 6-point Likert-type scales. Outcomes: Only one health care provider completed the survey. The data cannot be used to analyze the perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and behavioral intention of use regarding the Structured Review Checklist. However, even with participant recruitment challenges, the project provided a significant amount of lessons to learn for future research study.