BURLINGTON, Ont. – Joseph Brant, a 245-bed community hospital in Burlington, Ont., west of Toronto, represents the first hospital site in Canada to choose FDB MedsTracker MedRec as its fully automated medication reconciliation solution.

When implemented, it will integrate with the hospital’s health information system and clinical workflows to improve medication-related decisions and patient outcomes.

A central component of a healthcare organization’s medication error prevention strategy is an effective process for medication reconciliation. According to the Canadian Adverse Events Study, drug events were the second most common type of event to which patient safety incidents were related.

Medication errors that can be prevented through an effective medication reconciliation process include:

• inadvertent omission of needed home medications;
• failure to restart home medications following transfer and discharge;
• duplicate therapy at discharge resulting from brand/generic combinations or formulary substitutions, and
• errors associated with incorrect doses or dosage forms.

FDB MedsTracker MedRec is a web-based electronic medication reconciliation solution that supports efficient patient admission, transfer and discharge; provides complete safety checks; and delivers a medically accurate and easily understandable and reconciled best-possible medication history list covering both home and inpatient medications.

The solution has proven to help hospitals reduce the average time range to complete discharge medication reconciliation to one to three minutes (from a range of five to 20 minutes); improve their completion rate of home medication lists to 80%–92%; and improve average accuracy rates for missed medications, duplicate therapies, and correct dosing to 95%–100%.

“Joseph Brant Hospital prides itself on offering an integrated system of care that adheres to the highest standards of care quality and patient safety and satisfaction. To maintain this level of excellence, it is imperative to provide our clinical care team with access to tools that support efficient and accurate medication reconciliation,” said Dr. Frank Fornasier, hospitalist, chairman of health records, Joseph Brant Hospital. “We believe that FDB MedsTracker MedRec will deliver the infrastructure needed to support this mission.”

“We are pleased that the clinical team at Joseph Brant Hospital has placed their trust in FDB MedsTracker MedRec to support optimal medication reconciliation and care outcomes for patients,” said Chuck Tuchinda (pictured), president, FDB. “We fully expect that Joseph Brant will achieve the impressive medication reconciliation success already seen in all our installations.”

About Joseph Brant Hospital

Joseph Brant Hospital is a community hospital serving the City of Burlington and surrounding area since 1961. The hospital provides a range of services including medicine, surgery, emergency, maternal/child, mental health and rehabilitation/complex continuing care. The hospital currently operates 245 inpatient beds and accommodates over 170,000 patient visits, 13,512 admissions, 47,389 Emergency visits and 1,165 births each year. Its team includes 175 physicians, 1,400 full- and part-time professional health care staff and more than 600 active volunteers. Joseph Brant Hospital, its Foundation and Infrastructure Ontario are partnered on what will be the hospital’s first major redevelopment in 40 years. The project will include the construction of a new, seven-story patient-care tower and significant renovations to existing space.

About FDB (First Databank)

FDB, part of the Hearst Health network, is the leading provider of drug knowledge that helps healthcare professionals make precise medication-related decisions. With thousands of customers worldwide, FDB enables our information system developer partners to deliver a wide range of valuable, useful, and differentiated solutions. As the company that virtually launched the medication decision support category, we offer more than three decades of experience in transforming drug knowledge into actionable, targeted, and effective solutions that help improve patient safety and healthcare outcomes. For a complete look at our solutions and services please visit http://www.fdbhealth.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About Hearst Health

FDB is part of the Hearst Health network, which also includes Zynx Health, MCG and Homecare Homebase, and Hearst Health International. The mission of the Hearst Health network is to help guide the most important care moments by delivering vital information into the hands of everyone who touches a person’s health journey. Each year in the U.S., care guidance from the Hearst Health network reaches 84 percent of discharged patients, 174 million insured individuals, 41 million home health visits, and 4 billion prescriptions. Extensions of the Hearst Health network include Hearst Health Ventures and the Hearst Health Innovation Lab. For more information, please visit www.hearsthealth.com.