Frequency, type and clinical importance of medication history errors at admission to hospital: a systematic review

Over a quarter of hospital prescribing errors are attributable to incomplete medication histories being obtained at the time of admission. We undertook a systematic review of studies describing the frequency, type and clinical importance of medication history errors at hospital admission.

We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE and CINAHL for articles published from 1966 through April 2005 and bibliographies of papers subsequently retrieved from the search. We reviewed all published studies with quantitative results that compared prescription medication histories obtained by physicians at the time of hospital admission with comprehensive medication histories. Three reviewers independently abstracted data on methodologic features and results.