Questions or feedback? Email: Quality@rnzcgp.org.nz

Medicines Reconciliation process and audit

As part of monitoring adherence to the practice’s medicine reconciliation policy and procedure it is recommended
that practices undertake audits at least annually.

An annual audit will help practices identify any performance or system issues that need to be addressed, and result
in a quality improvement intervention (PDSA).

Audits can be rerun more frequently to check for the effectiveness of the interventions put in place.

Below is an example of the process practices could undertake for their audit process and a template for an audit form
with criteria to audit each patient record against.

Practices can adjust this process and template to suit their practice’s medicine reconciliation policy and procedure.

Suggested process:

Identify a minimum of 10 patients recently discharged from hospital. Note that practices may choose to include
other groups of patients subject to recent medication changes in their audit sample (e.g. new to the practice, multiple
prescribers) as per practice policy.

Undertake the audit using the medicines reconciliation audit form.

Collate the results and share as agreed by the practice with individual practitioners and the clinical governance group.

Initiate a quality improvement initiative using the PDSA cycle if performance requires lifting.

Re-audit annually or at agreed timeframes to test the effectiveness of any improvement measures.

Questions or feedback? Email: Quality@rnzcgp.org.nz

Medicines Reconciliation audit form template

Practice name:	Date of audit:
Name and role of person completing the audit:

Record number	NHI	Ethnicity / ethnic group code	Has medicines reconciliation occurred within seven CALENDAR days of the Electronic Discharge Summary being received by the practice?	Has the patient's medication list been updated in the electronic record?	Have the changes to the medications been discussed/communicated with the patient in accordance with the practice’s policy?	Comments / notes for discussion
Y	N	Y	N	NA	Y	N	NA
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10