02 November 2009
NHS Forth Valley Pharmacy team lead the way in patient safety
Taking medicine in NHS Forth Valley is becoming safer - thanks to
the work of local pharmacy teams who have just won several national
awards for new ideas to improve patient safety.
The Pharmas Awards celebrate high-achieving individuals and teams
from all sectors of pharmacy. The Pharmas is supported by the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and at the awards made
recently success involved a team at Stirling Royal Infirmary.
NHS Forth Valley Pharmacy Services in conjunction with the NHS
Scotland eHealth program have developed and implemented an
electronic system for patient demographics, tracking and drug
recording at hospital admission and discharge.
Pharmacists were pivotal to the development of the "eward" system,
creating a medication history screen which is attached to the
patient's medical record. This screen allows recording of
sources of medication history, utilising the "Emergency Care
Summary", GP contact, community pharmacy contact, patient interview
and/or assessment of patients own medication
The use of hand held computers, has facilitated direct input of
medication history by skilled pharmacy technicians, reducing the
risk of transcription error. Clinical pharmacists then
follow, undertaking the process of medicines reconciliation,
between the drug history and the in-patient
prescription.
The system has been developed to allow the functionality of
"one stop dispensing" - where verified drug history is used,
alongside in-patient prescription to request labelled supplies of
drugs from the central dispensary, reducing further need for nurse
transcription.
Feedback from GPs has been positive, in that the quality of
information on discharge has improved, and the information is now
made available to them a lot quicker than previously.
Another finalist in this category was Jonathan Burton from Right
Medicine Pharmacy who operates pharmacies across NHS Forth
Valley.
Jonathan has introduced a range of systems to improve patient
safety. These include issuing patient safety cards for
methotrexate, St. John's Wort, and oral contraceptive/antibiotic
interactions.
In addition he has introduced an annual safety award for his staff,
to encourage ideas on improving patient safety even
further.
This work also won him first prize in the patient safety section of
the Pharmacy Business Awards 2009.
Taking medicine in NHS Forth Valley is becoming safer - thanks
to the work of local pharmacy teams who have just won several
national awards for new ideas to improve patient safety.
The Pharmas Awards celebrate high-achieving individuals and
teams from all sectors of pharmacy. The Pharmas is supported by the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and at the awards
made recently success involved a team at Stirling Royal
Infirmary.
NHS Forth Valley Pharmacy Services in conjunction with the NHS
Scotland eHealth program have developed and implemented an
electronic system for patient demographics, tracking and drug
recording at hospital admission and discharge.
Pharmacists were pivotal to the development of the "eward"
system, creating a medication history screen which is attached to
the patient's medical record. This screen allows recording of
sources of medication history, utilising the "Emergency Care
Summary", GP contact, community pharmacy contact, patient interview
and/or assessment of patients own medication
The use of hand held computers, has facilitated direct input of
medication history by skilled pharmacy technicians, reducing the
risk of transcription error. Clinical pharmacists then
follow, undertaking the process of medicines reconciliation,
between the drug history and the in-patient prescription.
The system has been developed to allow the functionality
of "one stop dispensing" - where verified drug history is used,
alongside in-patient prescription to request labelled supplies of
drugs from the central dispensary, reducing further need for nurse
transcription.
Feedback from GPs has been positive, in that the quality of
information on discharge has improved, and the information is now
made available to them a lot quicker than previously.
Another finalist in this category was Jonathan Burton from Right
Medicine Pharmacy who operates pharmacies across NHS Forth
Valley.
Jonathan has introduced a range of systems to improve patient
safety. These include issuing patient safety cards for
methotrexate, St. John's Wort, and oral contraceptive/antibiotic
interactions.
In addition he has introduced an annual safety award for his
staff, to encourage ideas on improving patient safety even
further.
This work also won him first prize in the patient safety section
of the Pharmacy Business Awards 2009.