Evaluation of a pharmacist-led actionable audit and feedback intervention for improving medication safety in UK primary care: An interrupted time series analysis (13 October 2020)

Summary

Peek et al. evaluated the impact of the pharmacist-led Safety Medication dASHboard (SMASH) intervention on medication safety in primary care.

SMASH was developed by researchers at the National Institute for Health Research Greater Manchester Patient Safety Translational Research Centre (NIHR GM PSTRC), which is a partnership between The University of Manchester and Salford Royal hospital in collaboration with The University of Nottingham. Pharmacists working in general practice use the SMASH dashboard to identify patients who are exposed to potentially hazardous prescribing.

The study found that the SMASH intervention was associated with reduced rates of potentially hazardous prescribing and inadequate blood-test monitoring in general practices. This reduction was sustained over 12 months after the start of the intervention for prescribing but not for monitoring of medication. There was a marked reduction in the variation in rates of hazardous prescribing between practices.