Patient characteristics of hospital discharge episodes before and after the implementation of a hospital-based electronic medication reconciliation program
| Variable | No. (%) of patients* | Standardized difference, % | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before implementation† n = 5971 | After implementation‡ n = 12 434 | ||
| Demographics | |||
| Age, yr, median (IQR) | 74 (69–80) | 74 (69–80) | 5 |
| Sex, male | 3350 (56.1) | 6853 (55.1) | 2 |
| Lowest income quintile | 1052 (17.6) | 2352 (18.9) | 3 |
| Highest income quintile | 1334 (22.3) | 2544 (20.5) | 5 |
| Long-term care resident | 41 (0.7) | 91 (0.7) | 1 |
| Comorbidities | |||
| Charlson comorbidity score, median (IQR) | 0 (0–1) | 0 (0–1) | 0 |
| Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease | 438 (7.3) | 886 (7.1) | 1 |
| Diabetes | 485 (8.1) | 745 (6.0) | 8 |
| Hypertension | 766 (12.8) | 1235 (9.9) | 9 |
| Ischemic heart disease | 1470 (24.6) | 2452 (19.7) | 11 |
| Liver disease | 64 (1.1) | 192 (1.5) | 4 |
| Inflammatory bowel disease | 707 (11.8) | 1459 (11.7) | 0 |
| Renal disease | 394 (6.6) | 923 (7.4) | 3 |
| Arthritis | 38 (0.6) | 95 (0.8) | 2 |
| Stroke | 161 (2.7) | 362 (2.9) | 1 |
| Cerebrovascular disease | 214 (3.6) | 464 (3.7) | 1 |
| Dementia | 25 (0.4) | 60 (0.5) | 1 |
| Congestive heart failure | 947 (15.9) | 2043 (16.4) | 2 |
| Previous health care utilization | |||
| No. of outpatient internal medicine specialist visits in previous year, median (IQR) | 0 (0–1) | 0 (0–1) | 21 |
| No. of primary care visits in previous year, median (IQR) | 3 (1–8) | 3 (1–8) | 0 |
| Medication use | |||
| No. of medications in previous year, median (IQR) | 7 (4–11) | 7 (4–11) | 1 |
| Polypharmacy at admission (≥ 10 different daily prescription medications in the last year) | 2075 (34.8) | 4249 (34.2) | 1 |