Author(s)

saif salah

Why was it done?

In Carmel Medical Center, the infusion pack is delivered by a pharmacist according to the prescription given from PN staff, and afterwards the infusion instructions are recorded by one of the department physicians in the patient EHR. Recently there have been several mistakes that have been reported, which made it urgent to check matching between PN staff decision and the record of instructions in the EHR.

What was done?

Recognise the mismatch between the electronic health record (EHR) instructions for delivery of parenteral nutrition (PN), against the actual delivery by the pharmacy according to prescription from PN staff and characterisation of these cases in terms of mismatching.

How was it done?

Issuing a report of the PN doses delivered by the electronic system called “UNIT-DOSE” in the pharmacy according to the name of patient and days of treatment of 2018 vs. electronic instructions that have been recorded by one of the department physicians in the “Kamelyon” system or “Meta Vision ” The parameters examined were: type of solution, composition, volume, supplements-additives (electrolytes, vitamins, trace elements), infusion rate and method of infusion (central / peripheral). Infusion rate was examined separately as a follow-up by a nutritionist.

What has been achieved?

From our research, we found a significant difference between computerised recording of PN instructions and what the patient actually received. This is due to the separation between the hand-written prescription by the PN staff and the computerised instruction recording by the treatment team. This may constitute a danger to patients.

What next?

Examination and follow-up by the pharmacist is important for identifying and treating errors of this nature appropriately. Guidance sessions for the treating staff should be conducted in the different departments. The prescription must be matched by the PN staff to the computerised instruction by placing a prescription pattern. Set up protocols in the computerised system that guide the treatment staff in the department to record the correct instructions.

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Author(s)

Gillian Cavell

Why was it done?

Despite the availability of RTU and RTA formulations of high-risk injectable medicines they were not always used. We developed the metric, to compare the use of RTU and RTA injectable medicines with the use of concentrates requiring further dilution or manipulation prior to administration e.g. dilution of morphine 10 mg/ml to 10 mg/10 ml prior to intravenous administration, e.g. withdrawal of 5 x 10 ml fentanyl 500 mcg/10 ml into a 50 ml syringe for continuous infusion, and identify areas for improvement.

What was done?

We have developed a series of metrics to measure compliance with national guidance for the safe use of injectable medicines. The guidance recommends use of ready-to-use (RTU) or ready-to-administer (RTA) injectable products, where these are available, to reduce the risk of patient harm from errors in the preparation of injections and infusions on hospital wards.

How was it done?

The metric utilises pharmacy-issue data to compare the number of units of RTU or RTA formulations issued to wards and clinical areas with the numbers of units of alternative products of the same drug entity. Expressed as a percentage the metric informs the organisation of the extent to which safer injectable medicines are being used, providing a baseline against which to review practice and reinforce the need to use alternative, safer formulations. A high percentage indicates good compliance.

What has been achieved?

The metrics have been used to successfully maximise the use of a range of safer formulations including RTA potassium chloride, RTU fentanyl 2500 mcg/50 ml vials for critical care infusion, 100 mg/10 ml paracetamol in neonatal units and RTU magnesium sulphate 20% (50 ml vials) for obstetric emergencies. Since the introduction of the metrics in 2016 a monthly scorecard of performance is reviewed by the Hospital Medication Safety Committee to identify and account for deviations.

What next?

The metrics are being shared with other organisations to benchmark performance. Ideas to promote implementation and business cases can be shared between organisations who may find implementing RTA and RTU injectable medicines challenging, especially where these are more expensive than formulations in established use.

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Author(s)

Karin Larmene-Beld, Rommert Wijnsma, Gerrit de Weerd, Maarten Postma, Erik Frijlink, Katja Taxis

Why was it done?

Medication administration errors are common in hospital practice. Meta-analyses suggest that about 10% of administrations are erroneous, with much higher error rates occurring during intravenous drug administrations. It has been demonstrated that 21% of the errors can be eliminated when prepared syringes are used. Many countries struggle with the problem of optimising the process of safe parenteral medication in hospitals. Different guidelines across countries outline how preparation of parenteral medication in the clinical environment should be done. Recently the Council of Europe published a resolution about preparation of medication which encourage the supply of ready-to-administer products by the pharmacy. Moving the activities of preparation of medication from the clinical environment to the pharmacy requires investments in pharmacy equipment but will result in efficacy, better quality and reduction in preparation medication errors in the hospital.

What was done?

Development and implementation of sterilisable plastic syringes produced in the hospital pharmacy for large-scale production of ready-to-administer products.

How was it done?

A new development in this area are ready-to-administer pre-filled sterilised syringes (PFSS) produced by the pharmacy. PFSS are produced on stock under GMP conditions by the hospital pharmacy using (semi) automatic filling and closing machines whereby quality and safety are embedded in the whole process of manufacturing. A total cost of ownership analysis is performed showing PFSS prepared in the hospital pharmacy yielded cost savings compared to conventional preparation on the ward. The process of production, filling, closing and sterilisation has been validated using newly acquired equipment. With the introduction of the cyclic olefin polymer (COP) syringes a new type of primary container is implemented in the pharmacy. To ensure patient safety and product quality a science- and risk-based strategy has been developed for testing extractables and leachables to qualify the new container as primary packaging material.

What has been achieved?

Introducing PFSS is cost saving for the healthcare system:– COP syringes are suitable as primary packaging material; –enhancement styles for better readability of labels are established; and – already, 15 products are validated and available for use in the hospital.

1. KHM Larmené-Beld KHM, Touwen-Spronk J, Luttjeboer J, et al. A cost minimization analysis of ready-to-administer pre-filled sterilized syringes in a Dutch hospital.. Submitted for publication in Clinical Therapeutics.
2. Larmené-Beld K, Kuiper A, van Berkel S, et al. A science- and risk-based strategy to qualify sterilized prefilled syringes as primary packaging material in a hospital pharmacy. Abstract submitted for 24th EAHP Congress.
3. Larmené-Beld KHM, Kim Alting E, Taxis K. A systematic literature review on strategies to avoid look-alike errors of labels. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 2018 74:985–93.

What next?

Introducing more drugs as ready-to-administer products. Optimising the label of ready-to-administer syringes to avoid look-alike errors based on the results of the review.

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Why was it done?

Because we observed an increase (20%) in the percentage of dispensing errors of drugs in the monodose process, we analysed the global pharmacy activity in our service and we observed a long processing time in preparing the monodose trolleys. Consequently, the review of the preparation of monodose trolleys was not carried out exhaustively.

What was done?

We reorganised the pharmacy service of our hospital in order to improve the total processing time and minimise the dispensation errors in monodose trolleys.

How was it done?

Through lean methodology, we analysed all the distribution tasks during the service. We used tools such as Spaghetti Chart, value-stream mapping, workflow observations, root cause analysis and the five why’s. Numerous interruptions were detected such as phone calls, movements to search for material and drugs, reworking, as well as other unnecessary work done at the same time. After this analysis, we redesigned the task’s organisation in order to improve patients’ security and reduce the process time. We modified the distribution of drugs in the preparation area; those drugs that are used more frequently are closer than the ones that are not used as regularly; a responsible to answer the telephone calls during the preparation is defined; and the hour of starting preparation is standardised. Additionally, a person in charge of supervising the process at its conclusion was designated. (The person who prepares the monodose trolleys, once work is finished, requests another member of the team to check that everything is correct.)

What has been achieved?

A significant reduction in the movements in the service, fewer interruptions and a 40% decrease in the total preparation time of the new drugs’ distribution. At the same time, the dispensation errors decreased by 35%.

What next?

Lean methodology permits the analysing and redesigning of the circuit and activity’s distribution in the service. Moreover, it is a good tool to improve the process, optimising time and reducing errors. Furthermore, the involvement of the service team is very important in finding better ways to work safely and improve circuits.

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Author(s)

Linda Jeffery

Why was it done?

The primary aim was to increase patient safety by quality-assuring ESPs and guiding clinicians to rational and safe prescribing. The Central Denmark Region (1.3 million citizens) has five hospitals, each with their own hospital and ward management. ESPs were previously set up and maintained locally, often by clinicians at ward level, resulting in several thousand, and a huge variety of ESPs for the same indication/treatment. Often only small differences separated these, but larger differences were also observed. Both patients and clinicians move around hospitals within the region. Varying ESPs from hospital to hospital confused clinicians and compromised patient safety.

What was done?

The regional Drug and Therapeutics Committee (DTC) commissioned the Hospital Pharmacy, Central Denmark Region to take over management of electronic standard prescriptions (ESP) in the shared Electronic Prescribing System (EPS). The pharmacy was also commissioned to lead the unification of local to regional ESPs, in collaboration with clinical specialists. ESPs are electronic ‘packages’ of one or more prescriptions, set up for treatment of defined conditions/procedures e.g. knee-replacement. When the clinician prescribes an ESP, the predefined prescriptions appear automatically in the patient’s medicines list.

How was it done?

The Hospital Pharmacy highlighted clinical areas/treatments with several variations of the same ESP. The DTC appointed relevant clinicians to work with a pharmacist on unifying these, to one (or more) standardised ESPs, to be used in the whole region. The pharmacist was coordinator for the ad-hoc working groups. After approval by the DTC, these ESPs replaced the existing. If a department wanted an ESP that differed from the regional ESP, this had to be approved by the DTC.

What has been achieved?

Regional ESPs have been approved for:
• Abortion (reduced from 17 to six).
• Helicobacter pylori eradication (reduced from 28 to two).
• Treatment of paracetamol-overdosage.
Many new ESPs have been approved, promoting:
• Safe prescribing of complicated regimes e.g. fosphenytoin loading/maintenance.
• Use of regional formulary drugs e.g. antibiotics for pneumonia/urosepsis.

What next?

We continue to work on other regimes that can be unified e.g. treatment of Wernickes prophylaxis/syndrome and parenteral nutrition. We recently met with pharmacists from two other regions that use the same EPS as us – maybe we can share ESPs nationwide in future.

Author(s)

Mohammed Almeziny, Fahad Alkharji , Ali Alkhudair , Jameel Al Mutairi

Why was it done?

Poor allergies’ documentation may cause harm to the patients, if the concerned medication reaches them. The hospital is planning to implement a new Health Information System, which includes a Computerised Provider Order Entry. However, this is a long-term project, so in order to minimise that risk, the hospital administration gave the pharmacists the privilege to do so. The percentage of documented drug allergies was 14%. The issue of compliance from the medical, nursing and pharmacy staff was a major obstacle in allergies’ documentation. For that reason, the pharmaceutical services initiated an improvement project to enhance allergies’ documentation. it is the responsibility of the physician to document any allergy on the inpatient prescription form (IPPF). On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the nurse to ensure that all information is completed on the IPPF before it is sent to the pharmacy. The role of the pharmacist is to document the patient’s allergy in the pharmacy system.

What was done?

Increase the allergy documentation from 14% to 96%.

How was it done?

The FOCUS PDCA was adopted. Find: It was found that the compliance rate was not satisfactory. Patients might receive a medication that is known to cause an allergic reaction, because the allergy was not documented and communicated with other healthcare providers. Organise: The team consisted of all involved departments. Clarify: Some IPPF may not contain allergies and some pharmacy staff do not document the allergy in the pharmacy system. Understand: The factors that may influence the process were identified, although some healthcare professionals consider the documentation as a time-consuming process. The pharmacy system is an old system which does not support enforcing function. Select: The targeted outcome was 90% within 1 year of its inception, July 2017 to July 2018. Plan: All allergies MUST be assisted, and the pharmacy will act as the enforcing body. Do the plan: All pharmacists were reminded to enforce hospital policies by not accepting any incomplete prescription and document all drug allergies in the pharmacy system. Check: Statistics regarding compliance were presented in monthly meetings to highlight the challenges, difficulty or any serious issue. It is a proactive meeting and members can freely suggest any tools required to improve the situation.

What has been achieved?

There was a significant improvement from 14% to 96%.

What next?

Start e-prescription to enforce the documentation of allergies.

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Author(s)

A Elsheashaey, A Elshishiny, A Orabi, A Almutairi, A Aboulwafa, H Alobaid, F Dashti, D Saeed, R Yassin, M Salama

Why was it done?

Kuwait Cancer Control Center (KCCC) is the only oncology hospital in Kuwait. Chemotherapy Preparation Unit (CTPU) was unable to meet the increased orders; causing delivery delay and more patients’ waiting time. Moreover; rework and more waste due to defective and faulty processes of current workflow resulting in frequent incident reports of wrong final products dispatched.

What was done?

Shifting to a systematic multi-step production workflow to increase compounding capacity, minimize risk of errors, reduce processing time, and maximize utilization of integrated technological resources.

How was it done?

Using multiple PDSA cycles, a comprehensive educational and practical training was conducted, proceeded by staff rotation with newly trained team. Every three weeks a new pharmacist trained and assigned to CTPU. Raw materials stores were rearranged for better accessibility and diminishing unnecessary staff movement. A staging step as the first independent double-check before the start of compounding, and for assembly of raw materials and supplies required for compounding. A verification Step as the second independent double-check upon compounding, using bar-code scanners, touchscreens and cross-checking with the chemotherapy order to assure the quality and integrity of the finished product. Production workload were restructured over three parallel line of manual stations and one automated preparation unit. Pharmacy Information System (PIS) screens were customized to give a first and second audio-visual alarms after 30 and 45 minutes of transcription time respectively. Chemotherapy sessions appointment system were established to assess the daily chemotherapy compounding needs from CTPU in advance with an incremental increase of production capacity to reach 100~120 patients/day or 180~200 preparations/day.

What has been achieved?

Number of preparation compounded by CTPU was increase by 8%, where more than 43% of preparations were validated to release in less than 30 minutes and approximately 88% of preparations were delivered in less than 45 minutes. Number of preparation by automation was increased by 82%, Furthermore, all production incidences has been completely eliminated after full implementation of final verification and validation step.

What next?

The new workflow has increase the workload capacity with less production errors and zero incident reports. Patient experience was improved by comparable preparation time to other international Pharmacy Workload Unit and average time required per patient visit.

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Author(s)

Gregorio Romero Candel, Esther Domingo Chiva, Nuria Martinez Monteagudo, Jose Marco del Rio, Marca Diaz Rangel, Francisca Sanchez Rubio, Ismael Perez Alpuente, Eva Garcia Martinez, Ana Valladolid Wals

Why was it done?

The ED is an area where medication errors are common given it´s complexity, the large number of patients with different pathologies, having to make quick decisions with little clinical information and the coexistence of professionals with different training.
The use of intravenous (IV) and high risk drugs, as well as the mixture of two or more intravenous drugs in the same diluent are usual and can lead to medication errors.
We designed an educational program based on a session for nurses of the ED to standardize the use of the most commonly administered drugs and improve patient safety

What was done?

A training session for nursing staff on safe drug administration in the emergency department (ED) was performed

How was it done?

A training session was conducted by the fourth year resident during a two month rotation period in this area. The most common mistakes were presented to nurses based on national studies, as well as techniques for safe administration of drugs. Guides on parenteral administration of the hospital were reviewed with special emphasis on high risk drugs and how to manage them according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices. We also developed a guide including the most frequent drug incompatibilities and direct intravenous administration of drugs for the ED.

What has been achieved?

The aim of the session was to train personnel at the ED in order to reduce medication errors and promote a safety culture. In turn, the development of guidelines to standardize clinical practice are useful, making information accessible and easy to use. Clinical sessions between departments allow the integration of the pharmacist in other areas.

What next?

We are still working with the ED to increase safety in drug therapy by developing new pharmacotherapeutic protocols (high risk medications protocols, perfusion protocols and new safety guidelines and training sessions). We are also working with more departments at our hospital with the experienced gained

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Author(s)

Nadia El Hilali Masó, Elvira Ramió Montero, Gemma Baronet Jordana, Marina De temple Pla, Paula Montoliu Alcon, Maria Jaume Gaya, Núria Pi Sala, Joan Altimiras Ruiz, Montserrat Pons Busoms

Why was it done?

The confusion between drug names represents a common cause of medication errors due to similarities between trade names and active ingredients or vice versa. Very new drugs coexisting with others that are very well known can easily induce errors in wards, unclear prescription may lead to misunderstanding of prescription.

What was done?

Development and implementation of measures to improve patient’s safety from purchase to drug prescription and administration.When we switch to a new provider maybe forced by drug shortage, we perform a review to avoid medication errors in all dosage forms.If needed, we elaborated alerts (pharmalerts) and newsletters. We applied Tall Man letters (TML) method to manage look-alike and sound-alike drugs, and to reduce prescription errors we elaborated a “Best practices on drug prescription” validated by Commission of pharmacy.

How was it done?

We prepared a formulary online on the intranet where pharmacist introduces relevant drug information as composition (i.e, excipients, contents latex or not, etc.), dilution, stability, source of errors (name, brand name,etc) among others. We compare them with existing ones to take an action, if necessary, that will be spread to all professionals. To implement TML method we followed the ISMP recommendations. First, we selected 3 antibiotics: cefOTAXime, cefAZOLin, cefTRIAXone. We changed these names in the prescription program so that the differentiation is reflected when drugs are prescribed, dispensed and administered. The implementation was explained to pharmacy, nursery and medical staff.After a month, we evaluated its acceptance.

What has been achieved?

We reviewed 61 new products: 50 trademarks, 14 new drugs and 7 dosage forms. 70.48% of products, acquired temporally or permanently, were new trademarks; 19.71% new drugs and 9.81% new dosage forms. The review is a good tool for a safe use of drugs and improves communication between healthcare providers. To evaluate TML implementation 240 questionnaires were completed: Acceptance was 92.05% (nursery and medical staff). 91.17% thought that it is possible to make a mistake with look-alike or sound-alike drugs and 68.72% that TML is useful to minimise medication errors.

What next?

The huge acceptance of TML encourages us to select other drugs from ISMP list. We have 6 pairs of drugs. We are planning to extend its use to storage shelves on wards.

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Author(s)

Charlotte Ménage, Mickaël Le Barbu, Adrien Borowik, Christine Housset, Sandrine Voisin, Florence Lémann, Jean-Michel Descoutures

Why was it done?

An audit of the medication storage cabinets was performed in 2015 in 19 care units. Over a three month period, more than 5000 inappropriate medecines were found which are likely to alter the process of pillboxes prepation by the nurses. Our objective was to develop a training program for nurses to identify and avoid near miss events during the medication administration process.

What was done?

A simulation learning program for nurses was implemented to secure the drug pillboxes preparation.

How was it done?

A multiprofessional team (i.e., pharmacist, physician, pharmacist resident, head nurse, risk manager, hospital hygienist) collaboratively developed a simulation-based workshop. Two mobile cabinets were designed. They were composed of 28 medicine boxes, a patient pillbox and a laptop with a mock prescription. They included the use of a simulation scenario with errors (e.g., expired tablets, damaged blister packs, mixed pharmaceutical forms or dosages, non-formulary drugs). The nurses had to prepare the patient’s pillbox for one day and then were asked to solve five questions about good practices. A validated assessment grid was filled in by two team members, and finally discussed with the nurse about the successes and pitfalls as an education purpose. At the end of the simulation program, nurses had to answer a satisfaction survey.

What has been achieved?

47 nurses experienced the simulation-based workshop. It took 40 min for each nurse on the same week. 89% removed the deteriorated tablets remaining in the pillbox and did not unpack any unit dose. However, 81% were unable to prepare the right medicine, the right dose, the right route for the right patient at the right time, because of a lack of patient identification on the pillbox. Some critical procedures were considered not appropriately followed: i.e., detecting acetaminophen prescription duplicate (only 26%), throwing away medicines in the right disposable bin (21%), checking the tablet expiry dates (70%), using a drug for which the patient was not allergic (62%). The 47 nurses were all together satisfied (100%) with this workshop.

What next?

The simulation based program was adopted by the hospital department of nurse care. It is now integrated in the yearly re-assessment skills program of all nurses.