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Know Your MedicationsThe Issue with Medications:
It might surprise you to learn that medication errors are one of the leading causes of injury to hospitalized patients.
Many patients before coming to the hospital have been seeing multiple doctors and taking a combination of upwards of 20 products per day! These can include prescribed medicines as well as over-the-counter products including vitamins and herbal products. Each medication, multiplied by two or three doses a day could add up to 30-plus doses within a 24 hour period.
To reduce the possibility of errors once inside the hospital, it is critical that all the patients' on-going medications are known and listed at the time of admission.
For your own health and safety, we need to know what medications you are taking!
What CVMC is doing about it:
As one of our on-going Safety Initiatives we are trying hard to accurately and continually monitor and reconcile patients' medications.
- We are implementing a process for documenting, with the patient's help, a complete list of current medications upon admission. We will compare the medication on the list with those in use at CVMC.
- When a patient is referred or transferred to another setting, service, practitioner or level of care within or outside the organization, we will share a complete list of the patient's medications with the next provider of service
The Patient's Role:
The information that we collect and share is as only as good and accurate as the information we are given. The bottom line is this:
Everyone needs to maintain a current list of their own medications. It could save a life!
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