Poor communication on patients' medication across health care levels leads to potentially harmful medication errors.

Objective: General practitioners have a key role in updating their patients' medication. Poor communication regarding patients' drug use may easily occur when patients cross health care levels. We wanted to explore whether such inadequate communication leads to errors in patients' medication on admission, during hospital stay, and after discharge, and whether these errors were potentially harmful.

[Communication about drug use in referrals, acute admissions and discharge letters].

Background: It is critical to communicate properly about drug use across health care levels, to avoid adverse drug effects and medication errors. We have investigated communication about drug use between a hospital and the primary health care services through an assessment of referrals and discharge letters.

Material And Methods: At Innlandet Hospital Trust Gjøvik, all elective referrals to the medical outpatient clinic and discharge letters from the medical department during two periods (in 2009) were copied and anonymised.