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Showing results for tags 'Medication'.
Found 1,118 results
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Content ArticleThere is a lack of awareness regarding the pervasive influence of the built environment on caregiving activities, and how its design could reduce risks for patients and providers. This article from Joseph et al. presents a narrative review summarising key findings that link health care facility design to key targeted safety outcomes: health care–associated infections, falls, and medication errors. It describes how facility design should be considered in conjunction with quality improvement legislation; projects under way in health systems; and the work of guideline-setting organizations, funding agencies, industry, and educational institutions. The article also charts a path forward that consolidates existing challenges and suggests what can be done about them to create safe and high-quality healthcare environments.
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Content ArticleThe Joint Commission implemented medication management titration standards in 2017, with revisions in 2020. Researchers surveyed critical care nurses about their experiences with medication titration, use of clinical judgment when titrating, nurses’ scope and autonomy, and their moral distress. Of 781 respondents, 80% perceived the titration standards caused delays in patient care and 68% reported suboptimal care, both of which significantly and strongly predicted moral distress.
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Content Article
Global Drug Policy Index
Steve Turner posted an article in Data and insight
The Global Drug Policy Index provides a score and ranking for each country to show how much their drug policies and their implementation align with the UN principles of human rights, health and development. It offers an important accountability and evaluation mechanism in the field of drug policy. -
Content ArticleThe aim of this study in BMJ Open was to develop quality standards that define minimal requirements for safe medication processes in nursing homes. After identifying key topics for medication safety from a systematic search for similar guidelines, prior work and discussions with experts, the authors specified the essential requirements for each key topic. They then evaluated these requirements with a piloted, two-round Delphi study. The study developed 85 quality standards for safer and resident-oriented medication in Swiss nursing homes.
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Content ArticleThis study in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology involved searching electronic health records to uncover how many people in prisons have been affected by a potential problem related to their prescribed medication. Researchers looked at published studies and worked with prison healthcare staff to develop and implement prescribing safety indicators (PSIs) for prison electronic health records. The authors found that PSIs provide a significant opportunity to measure and improve medication safety for people in prisons and that more patients were affected by some PSIs than others. The study also investigated how the searches could be used more widely in prisons and interviewed 20 prison health care staff to explore this topic. The staff they spoke to said that it was important to have people who can take on leadership of the searches and to promote team-based responses to them.
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Content ArticleChristopher Collinson was admitted to the Medical Assessment Unit at Birmingham Heartlands Hospital with suspected deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism. He was admitted at 1.28pm on 14 June 2021, but was not seen by a Doctor until 9.33pm. He was later prescribed a prophylactic dose of Enoxaparin, rather than the therapeutic dose which the doctor had intended to prescribe. He collapsed at 11.00pm suffering a cardiac arrest and could not be revived. He died at 2.14am on 15 June 2021.
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Content ArticleIn this blog for CNN health, Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken discuss the exponential increase in the prescription of the drug Nuedexta to care home residents with dementia in the US. A CNN investigation found that the number of Nuedexta pills dispensed to care home facilities increased by nearly 400% in four years, prompting concerns that it is being inappropriately prescribed. The drug is designed to treat a rare disorder called pseudobulbar affect (PBA) which occurs in only 5% patients with dementia. State regulators have found doctors inappropriately diagnosing nursing home residents with PBA to justify using Nuedexta to treat patients whose confusion and agitation make them difficult to manage. Analysis by CNN also found that nearly half the Nuedexta claims filed with Medicare in 2015 came from doctors who had received money or other perks from the manufacturer.
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Content ArticleThis study in the Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety examines the impact of using unclear or misleading abbreviations on medication prescribing errors. This study analysed Medmarx data from 2004 to 2006 to determine the prevalence and impact of errors related to abbreviations. Despite dissemination of the Joint Commission's “do not use” abbreviation list, errors involving these abbreviations occurred more than 18,000 times during the study period, although few patients were harmed as a result.
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Content ArticleThis study, published in JAMA Network Open, looks at whether publicly reported feedback was associated with hospital improvement in an evaluation of medication-related safety performance. The results indicate that publicly reported feedback was associated with quality improvement, and the authors suggest that targeted measurement and reporting of process quality may be effective in encouraging improvement in specific areas.
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Content ArticleIn this article, the journalist Peter Hitchens examines the link between mental illness, prescription and illegal drugs and violent acts of terrorism. He argues that more attention needs to be given to defendants' mental health record, medication history and any past substance abuse.
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Content ArticleThis is an Early Day Motion tabled in the House of Commons on the 21st October 2021, which notes disappointment with the UK Government’s response to the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review. The motion calls on the Government to reconsider its response and to implement all nine recommendations in their entirety, and to ensure patient safety remains paramount in any changes to regulatory approval frameworks.
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Content ArticleThis article in Age & Ageing describes a quality improvement project at Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust (LTHT) that aimed to achieve timely Parkinson’s disease medication administration.
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Parkinson’s is the fastest growing neurological condition in the world and in the UK around 145,000 people are living with the condition. When admitted to hospital, it is vital that patients with Parkinson’s get the right care and do not experience medication delays or omissions. In this blog, Dr Rowan Wathes, Associate Director of the UK Parkinson's Excellence Network at Parkinson's UK, recommends four key actions that healthcare workers can take to improve safety for people with Parkinson’s while they are in hospital. -
Content ArticleDouble-checking the administration of medications has been standard practice in paediatric hospitals around the world for decades, but there is little evidence of its effectiveness in reducing errors or harm. This study in BMJ Quality & Safety measures the association between double-checking and the occurrence and potential severity of medication administration errors. The authors found that: most nurses complied with mandated double-checking, but the process was rarely independent when not carried out independently, double-checking resulted in little difference to the occurrence and severity of errors compared with single-checking where double-checking was not mandated, but was performed, errors were less likely to occur and were less serious. They raise a question about whether the current approach to double-checking is a good use of time and resources, given the limited impact it has on medication administration errors.
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NHS England: Support for prescribers
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Medication administration
NHS England has commissioned the Specialist Pharmacy Service to provide prescribers with all the support they need to: Stop prescribing medicines which are not clinically-effective or cost-effective Provide clear information to patients to help them make meaningful choices and decisions about their treatment Help people to get the benefits they want from their prescribed medicines Encourage people to ‘self-care’ and choose not to take a medicine if they don’t really need one Take positive action to reduce waste so we stop throwing away so many medicines. -
Content ArticleThe government commissioned Dr Keith Ridge, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, to lead a review into the use of medication and overprescribing.
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Content ArticleThis study, published in JAMA Network Open, looks at the effectiveness of using an evidence-based mobile app to reduce the occurrence of medication errors, compared with conventional preparation methods during simulated paediatric out-of-hospital cardiac arrest scenarios. Its results indicated a decreased rate of medication errors through use of a mobile app, suggesting this could have the potential to improve medication safety and change practices in paediatric emergency medicine.
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Content ArticleIn this editorial for BMJ Quality & Safety, Dr Tamasine Grimes makes the case for greater patient involvement in managing medication, particularly at points of transition in care. She comments on a recent report on the effects of MARQUIS2, an evidence-based toolkit trialled in North American hospitals to help manage complex medication. The report found that interventions that involved patients in managing their medication had a significant effect in decreasing medication discrepancies, while purely system-level interventions did not.
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Content ArticleThe authors of this research study, published in BMJ Quality & Safety looked at the issues of hazardous prescribing and inadequate monitoring in patients with mental health issues being managed in primary care. They identified a lack of data in this area, despite most patients with mental illness receiving treatment in a primary care setting. The study found that: 9.4% of patients ‘at risk’ triggered at least one indicator for potentially hazardous prescribing. The risk was greatest for patients aged 35–44, females and those receiving more than 10 repeat prescriptions. 90.2% of patients ‘at risk’ triggered at least one indicator for inadequate monitoring. The risk was particularly high in people under the age of 25, females and those with one or no repeat prescription. The authors of the study hope their findings will support providers to reduce risk and improve care for patients who receive mental health treatment in primary care.
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The 21 September 2021 marks World Alzheimer’s Day. This is an international campaign to raise awareness and highlight issues faced by people affected by dementia (dementia is an umbrella term for a number of diseases that affect the brain, with Alzheimer’s disease its most common cause). In this interview, Patient Safety Learning speaks to Alison Keizer, a Mental Health Nurse and trust-wide Dementia Lead, and Fran Hamilton, Occupational Therapist and Deputy Dementia Lead, at Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust, about the patient safety issues affecting patients with dementia and how they can be supported to reduce risk. -
Content ArticleNICE will speed up patients’ access to the latest and most effective treatments, and dynamic guideline recommendations will be put in the hands of healthcare professionals more quickly under plans unveiled by National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in its 5-year strategy.
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Content ArticleMedication reconciliation broadly defined includes both formal and informal processes that involve the comprehensive evaluation of a patient’s medications during each transition of care and change in therapy. The medication reconciliation process is complex, and studies have shown that up to 91% of medication reconciliation errors are clinically significant and 1–2% are serious or potentially life-threatening. The Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System (PA-PSRS) was queried and identified 93 serious events related to the medication reconciliation process reported between January 2015 and August 2020.
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Content ArticleThe Medicines and Medical Devices Bill has received royal assent and has become law. The new Act will enable the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to implement a number of policies to amend the existing regulatory frameworks, although generally regulations under the Act must first be introduced. The potential changes include: Supporting the availability of medicines: enabling hub and spoke arrangements between different legal entities, to ‘support wider use of automation to bring increased efficiencies’; requiring manufacturers to provide electronic patient information leaflets; and increasing the professions able to prescribe and supply certain medicines. Protecting the public: developing a UK medicines verification system; introducing a national registration scheme for online sellers of medicines; and facilitating supply of medicines and medical devices during non-pandemic public health emergencies.
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Content ArticleThe World Health Organization (WHO) third Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm is to reduce severe avoidable medication-related harm globally by 50% in the next 5 years, as it is estimated the worldwide burden of medication errors is in the region of $42 billion. In support of WHO's campaign, the Department of Health and Social Care commissioned a review of the evidence base on medication errors in England to assess the extent and scale of medication error. The Department also established a Short Life Working Group (SLWG) in September 2017 to provide advice to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on the scope of a programme of work to improve medication safety.
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Uppsala Monitoring Centre: VigiBase
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Adverse interactions
VigiBase is the Uppsala Monitoring Centre (UMC)’s starting-point for the journey from data to wisdom about safer use of medicines and wise therapeutic decisions in clinical practice. It is the driving-force at the heart of the work of UMC and the WHO Programme. The purpose is to ensure that early signs of previously unknown medicines-related safety problems are identified as rapidly as possible. VigiBase is the unique WHO global database of individual case safety reports (ICSRs). It is the largest database of its kind in the world, with over 20 million reports of suspected adverse effects of medicines, submitted, since 1968, by member countries of the WHO Programme for International Drug Monitoring. It is continuously updated with incoming reports.
