Document Detail


Adopting real-time surveillance dashboards as a component of an enterprisewide medication safety strategy.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  21819031     Owner:  NLM     Status:  In-Process    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
BACKGROUND: High-alert medications are frequently responsible for adverse drug events and present significant hazards to inpatients, despite technical improvements in the way they are ordered, dispensed, and administered.
METHODS: A real-time surveillance application was designed and implemented to enable pharmacy review of high-alert medication orders to complement existing computerized provider order entry and integrated clinical decision support systems in a tertiary care hospital. The surveillance tool integrated real-time data from multiple clinical systems and applied logical criteria to highlight potentially high-risk scenarios. Use of the surveillance system for adult inpatients was analyzed for warfarin, heparin and enoxaparin, and aminoglycoside antibiotics.
RESULTS: Among 28,929 hospitalizations during the study period, patients eligible to appear on a dashboard included 2224 exposed to warfarin, 8383 to heparin or enoxaparin, and 893 to aminoglycosides. Clinical pharmacists reviewed the warfarin and aminoglycoside dashboards during 100% of the days in the study period-and the heparinlenoxaparin dashboard during 71% of the days. Displayed alert conditions ranged from common events, such as 55% of patients receiving aminoglycosides were missing a baseline creatinine, to rare events, such as 0.1% of patients exposed to heparin were given a bolus greater than 10,000 units. On the basis of interpharmacist communication and electronic medical record notes recorded within the dashboards, interventions to prevent further patient harm were frequent.
CONCLUSIONS: Even in an environment with sophisticated computerized provider order entry and clinical decision support systems, real-time pharmacy surveillance of high-alert medications provides an important platform for intercepting medication errors and optimizing therapy.
Authors:
Lemuel R Waitman; Ira E Phillips; Allison B McCoy; Ioana Danciu; Robert M Halpenny; Cori L Nelsen; Daniel C Johnson; John M Starmer; Josh F Peterson
Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety / Joint Commission Resources     Volume:  37     ISSN:  1553-7250     ISO Abbreviation:  Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf     Publication Date:  2011 Jul 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2011-08-08     Completed Date:  -     Revised Date:  -    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  101238023     Medline TA:  Jt Comm J Qual Patient Saf     Country:  United States    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  326-32     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
Department of Biomedical Informatics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tennessee, USA. rwaitman@kumc.edu
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