Kudo Helps Senator Stone Draft New Law to Reduce Errors in Admission Medication Lists

A new law in California aims to reduce errors in admission medication lists and thus make hospital care safer for patients at high risk for drug-related harm and readmission.

The law, which goes into effect on January 1, 2019, requires pharmacy staff at hospitals with more than 100 beds to obtain an accurate medication list for each newly admitted high-risk patient.

Making pharmacy responsible for reconciling these patients’ medication lists removes ambiguity from the process, said Rita Shane, chief pharmacy officer and professor of medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and writer of Senate bill 1254.