Promoting Safe Prescription (Rx) Medication Use: An Evidence-Based Review to Guide Future Patient Safety/Adherence Innovations

The Northwestern University team proposes to lead a white paper that will:

I. Concisely summarize the evidence describing known adverse outcomes pertaining to Rx medication safety in ambulatory care, and identify various patient and health system root causes (focusing specifically on ambulatory care & community pharmacy practices).

II. Systematically review the research literature detailing technology-based home, ambulatory care, and community pharmacy-based patient safety interventions designed to monitor medication use and/or promote regimen adherence. This will broadly include but not be limited to innovations involving electronic (eHealth) and mobile (mHealth) technologies, as well as electronic health records.

III. Establish primary findings and recommendations that can inform needed next steps for further research, as well as guide existing primary care and community pharmacy practices.