Summary: UCLA researchers have developed a new software package to reconcile medication lists between different electronic health records.
Background: Reconciliation is a crucial process that ensures patients’ medication lists are accurate. This process is especially important for patients with memory impairments, who may be more vulnerable to omissions or errors. In addition, medical facilities with low nurse to patient ratios can generate miscommunications that may lead to catastrophic medical outcomes. Transitioning between facilities using different electronic health record (EHR) systems can exacerbate this risk. Drug lists are typically cross-checked and reconciled manually, which is tedious and error-prone. To mitigate and prevent avoidable medical emergencies and improve patient outcomes, there is an urgent need to develop user-friendly software tools to quickly identify discrepancies in medication lists.
Innovation: Researchers led by Dr. Li Zhou in the Department of Medicine have developed a new software system to quickly and accurately perform medication reconciliation. The software imports medication lists from two different EHR systems, EPIC and PointClickCare, using natural language processing to interpret the text. This innovation enables interpretation of manually written drug lists which allows healthcare providers to efficiently and accurately transfer medication lists between institutions. Medications are then cross-checked with the National Library of Medicine to check for discrepancies. Overall, this innovation can be seamlessly implemented into EHRs, improve patient outcomes, and reduce healthcare expenditures from medication mismanagement.
Potential Applications: • Medication list reconciliation • Consolidating EHRs from different facilities • Emergency medicine
Advantages: • Compatible with different EHR systems • User-friendly interface • Validates drugs with National Library of Medicine
Development-To-Date: Researchers have validated the system on two different medical record systems.
Reference: UCLA Case No. 2024-244
Lead Inventor: Li Zhou, MD, UCLA Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine