What is the importance of medication reconciliation that is performed by pharmacists?

Medication reconciliation represents a major challenge for organizations. Inaccurate admission medication histories can follow a patient throughout a hospitalization and contribute to medication errors and increased costs of care. Similarly, inaccurate discharge medication reconciliation can produce errors in medication therapy post discharge, with an increased potential for readmission. Traditionally, organizations have utilized a variety of caregivers, including physicians and mid-level practitioners, to complete the medication reconciliation function, with the result being a fragmented process with suboptimal accuracy. Centralizing these functions with the pharmacy, using a small number of well-trained individuals, has the potential to improve the accuracy of this process while also reducing overall costs.