Free Webinar - "Top USP 797 Gaps: Results from the 2011 Compliance Survey" with Eric S. Kastango, MBA, RPh, FASHP, and Kate Douglass, MS, RN, APN,C, CRNI - Wednesday, February 15, 2011, 1:00 PM Eastern. Reserve your seat now.
Clinical decision support at the point of medication ordering has long been shown to improve error rates. A study last month out of Australia that showed that the use of electronic prescribing systems resulted in statically significant reductions in medication errors.
But the patient condition is a moving target, not a static object. What was prescribed 4 days ago (or even 4 hours ago) may not be relevant to the patient's most recent laboratory results. Clinical decision support at the point of patient monitoring (post-ordering) can be effective in alerting clinicians to mis-matched treatments.
Steve Riddle, BSPharm, BCPS, FASHP, writes on this very issue in the new February edition of Patient Safety and Quality Healthcare:
"Surveillance systems lend themselves to this kind of ongoing monitoring. The availability of smart logic contained within the technology can constantly monitor the lab results as well as other patient factors that can lead to improved decision-making about the best medications and the right dosage. Because information is available in real-time, these systems enable rapid analysis of patient needs, driving the best clinical decisions in a timely manner."
Hallmark Health System has found this to be true. After implementing Sentri7 they saw their renal dose interventions jump from 5 percent of their pharmacist intervention total to 12 percent. Real-time information allowed them to adjust medications up or down based on the patient's renal function. Read the case study.
Now onto the news!
Stay well-informed,
Team Pharmacy OneSource
Top Issue of the Week
Should doctors be allowed to bypass pharmacists and give their cancer patients treatment without a prescription? A proposed bill in the Utah Senate says they should, and that has pharmacists concerned.
This Week's Topics
Should cancer drugs be given out by doctors, not pharmacists? KSL Utah
E-mail This Newsletter to a Friend 
