Background The literature shows that there are errors in the drug treatment in 30% of patients at hospital admission. These medicines errors (MEs) may be continued throughout hospitalisation and can cause the patient adverse effects.

To reduce MEs and thus improve patient safety, the Compiègne Hospital Centre (HCC) has established a practise of medicines reconciliation (MR) since July 2011. Any unintentional discrepancies (UIDs) detected between the home treatment and the hospital treatment during MR are discussed and corrected with physicians to ensure continuity of the patient’s medicines.

Purpose After one year of experience, the objective was to evaluate the clinical impact of our interventions on patient safety.

Materials and Methods Patients older than 65 years, hospitalised in Geriatrics and Cardiology after admission by the emergency department, were eligible for MR.

To evaluate the clinical impact of MR, we assessed the potential aftermath of uncorrected UIDs on patient safety. To do this, any UIDs detected and corrected were classified into two groups:

• those with a high potential clinical impact: potentially life-threatening, that increase the length of hospitalisation and/or decompensation/aggravation of an existing disease.

• those with a low potential clinical impact.

Results 485 patients have benefited from MR, 30% of whom had a ME in their hospital prescription. Average age of patients: 84.6 years ±7.8. Sex ratio M/F: 0.67.

259 UIDs were detected of which 101 (39%) were classified as having a high potential clinical impact. This demonstrates the importance of MR for the safety of patients at their admission.

Conclusions After one year of MR in HCC, the results were positive.

The results on the clinical impact of our intervention were very encouraging and demonstrated the importance of continuing and developing medicines reconciliation. Our experience confirms the benefit of a pharmaceutical presence in the care units to improve patient safety.

No conflict of interest.