Health Literacy and Communication for Health Professionals
Essential Skills: Communicating High Risk and Care Transitions 8.2
Medication reconciliation
Medication reconciliation means that the pharmacist sits with a person and goes through each
medication ---both prescription and non-prescription medicines and check to see the following things:
·ð Does the patient know what the medicine is named and what it is for?
·ð How many places are being used to fill them? Because having more than one pharmacy
keeps pharmacists from performing adequate drug interaction checks when they don't
know the full spectrum of medications.
·ð They look to see How many duplicate prescriptions they have. Sometimes generic names
vs. brand names are confusing and duplications can happen.
·ð They look to see how old the medicine is. Are the pills expired?
·ð They look to see how many pills remain and is that number appropriate for the date and the
dosing?
Health messages containing numbers
Tips for conveying health messages containing numbers:
·ð When using numbers, Round decimals to the nearest whole number.
·ð Use familiar analogies and examples such as "5 pounds, about the same as a bag of sugar,
flour, etc.
·ð Define terms used for important concepts such as "common" and "rare.
·ð Try writing "half' rather than "50%" if possible.
·ð If possible, state numbers as 100 or less, and 1 or more.
·ð Be flexible about writing/grammar rules. Really, it's okay to write the number "5" instead of
spelling it out.
·ð Try combining words, pictures, and examples to convey numeric concepts. A good example it
to show pictures of two thermometers, one with a normal temperature and the other with a high
fever.
·ð Supplement your conversation with examples; "moderate exercise could be "Pat walks 10
minutes after breakfast, lunch and dinner."
·ð Do not assume that readers know mathematic symbols such as ">" (greater than) or "<" (less
than).