Real Clinical Computer Systems Can Make A Huge Difference - Pity The myHR Is Not One Of Them!

This appeared last week:

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford automates medication management to reduce adverse drug events

It has seen a 21 percent decrease in missed doses, a 66 percent reduction in wasted doses and zero reportable adverse events in the past 11 months.

By Bill Siwicki

July 06, 2018 01:11 PM

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford initiated various safety interventions for medication administration. Moving from a daily medication cart fill – once every 24 hours – to multiple fills per day – every 2 to 3 hours – and implementing a barcode verification system for all medication dispensing has resulted in a 21 percent decrease in missed doses, a 66 percent reduction in wasted doses and one of the lowest medication error rates according to incident reporting in the Solutions for Patient Safety Collaborative.

"Medication errors in hospitals can occur at any point during the medication use process and may result from the actions of physicians, pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, nurses, other hospital personnel or even the patient," said Melanie Chan, assistant director of pharmacy services at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford. "In California, hospital pharmacies are required by law to have a 'Medication Error Reduction Plan' that must be reviewed and updated annually, and technology implementation must be part of the plan.”

Safely providing medications in a children's hospital environment presents a number of unique challenges not seen in adult hospitals. Doses are primarily weight-based and medication formulations must be manipulated to provide patient-specific doses. An error in the medication use process has the potential for a catastrophic event when a child is involved.

At Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford, the prevention of medication errors has been a primary focus for more than 30 years.

Lots more here:

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/lucile-packard-childrens-hospital-stanford-automates-medication-management-reduce-adverse-drug

This is really a testament to what can be achieved with a concerted long term focus and effort and technology that is purpose designed to make sure, in virtually real time, errors are detected and prevented before they happen.

Introduction of these essentially interactive and real-time technologies in clinical care situations is known to work and to make a real difference, as witnessed above, as opposed to the introduction of non-interactive secondary systems that only not problems after the event. I know where the next $2Billion should be spent. On something that works!

David.