Table 3.

Relevant Quotations Organized by Themes: Health Care Professionals

Theme	Sample Quotations
1: Components and benefits of an accurate medication history	“It can participate a lot in patient care, …, it can participate even in the diagnosis of the disease of the patient.” “I think the history’s not only what they’re prescribed or not what they’re taking, but a combination of both, what they’re prescribed and how they’re actually taking it ….” “I find the patient interview, actually having the vials in front of me, going through them one by one, this is what you take, how many pills, regardless of what it says on the bottle, what does the patient tell me, ..., then I guess second would be any printout from any pharmacies, what medications do they provide, third would be I guess a note from other physicians saying what they’ve prescribed.”
2: Shared responsibility for medication history-taking among all 3 health care professions	“I think in my opinion it is the one, the doctor who treats the patient, he must take the medication history, it’s a must. … doctors who admit the patient, we have to be really sure of what medicines the patients are taking, and definitely what they were prescribed, and which doses they were prescribed, ….” [physician] “… I agree the two disciplines that should have the most ownership should be the physicians, because they are the ones to be prescribing the medication once the patient comes into hospital, but I think it’s also the pharmacist’s role, because we are the drug experts, so we need to collect an accurate medication history in order to prevent drug-related problems or to intervene properly ... I think the responsibility should also be with nursing as well, because there’s a nurse who cares for the patient ….” [pharmacist] “I think it’s shared yes, … the doctor’s responsibility is more so, probably 70%, because they’re the ones prescribing medications, we can’t do it. We often find the mistakes ….” [nurse]
3: Perceptions about medication history documentation	“… in terms of our documentation any computer-based solution stands to be an improvement, because I think fewer transcription errors would occur, and there would be more clarity, there would be better communication with the nurses, we wouldn’t have to decipher bad handwriting, or inappropriate doses, and built into computer systems are intelligent design systems that can anticipate what you’re writing ….”
4: Perceptions about barriers to medication history-taking	“… in elderly patients [who are taking] a lot of medications and especially in the middle of the night, they don’t have their medications with them, it’s really hard to know what medications, and because you need to write the admission orders for them, and they don’t have their medications, they don’t know the medications that they’re taking, and then if the pharmacy’s not 24 hours there’s no way to track down what medications they take, … so they miss dosing, doses because of that.” “… I think the other problem is lack of communication between the family doctor, the surgeon, the specialist, … so they’ll make changes and the family doctor’s not aware, and then I have to contact the family MD and all the specialists to get a complete history, ….”
5: Suggestions for system-level facilitators to improve accuracy of medication histories	“Access to records … and a lot of our admissions come in after hours, so if there were ways to liaise easily with community pharmacists, that would be a facilitator.” “If the patient comes in armed with knowledge, or some knowledge, that goes a long way.” “… they should put an ad in the newspaper and say if patient’s coming to hospital, please bring your pill bottles with you.”