September 16, 2022 - World Patient Safety Day is an important public health day established by the World Health Organization (WHO). World Patient Safety Day sets out to raise awareness, engagement, and understanding of health issues in order to promote patient safety and reduce patient harm. While Patient Safety is always a priority at MEDITECH, World Patient Safety Day brings MEDITECH’s patient safety-related mission and work to the forefront for all staff and customers.
Each year, to educate the public and promote a call to action, a new theme is chosen for World Patient Safety Day. This year, Medication Safety has been chosen as the theme of World Patient Safety Day 2022:
The slogan ‘Medication Without Harm’ has been adopted and calls for prioritization and action in select areas associated with patient harm due to unsafe medication practices. These areas include:
World Patient Safety Day will take place virtually around the globe on September 17. It will include a series of webinars on medication safety and will encompass a wide range of events. This year’s campaign:
Click here to visit the WHO’s Patient Safety Day page, which shares the objectives and ways to celebrate.
From order entry to administration, the MEDITECH EHR includes various features that help organizations promote and ensure medication safety.
MEDITECH organizations have the ability to collect a patient’s Home Medication information during triage, admission, transfer, and discharge. Home Medications collected outside of a MEDITECH organization can also be consumed from the Continuity of Care Document (CCD) to further ensure the accuracy of a patient’s Home Medication List. More information on MEDITECH’s integrated Medication Reconciliation workflow can be found here.
Medication conflict checking provides clinical decision support to ensure comprehensive conflict checking takes place during medication order entry, verification, and administration. Drug screening within the Expanse platform, which utilizes First Databank’s (FDB) Framework Application Programming Interface (API), results in accurate and real-time conflict checking. Pharmacogenomic drug-gene checking can also be performed, allowing the system to conflict check medications based on a patient’s genetic information.
The MEDITECH EHR allows for the creation of weight-based dosing sets used to order medications and IV fluids and calculate weight-based medication doses, bolus fluid volume, maintenance fluids, and IV premix doses. Using hard-coded formulas, clinicians can select a dose based on kilograms or body surface area (BSA), which are especially important when calculating the dose for pediatric, elderly, or obese patients.
The MEDITECH Pharmacy (PHA) application integrates with Dispensing Machine, Robot, and IV Workflow Management vendors to improve patient safety and streamline PHA workflow. Integration with Dispensing Machines ensures secure storage of medications and better tracking of controlled substances. Integration with a Robot automates the process of filling orders and communication with IV Workflow Management systems helps in preparing, verifying, tracking, and documenting sterile IV preparations.
To ensure patient safety, pharmacists utilize the New Activity List from the Pharmacist Desktop to review and act upon recent patient and medication activity. For example, unverified medication orders display on the New Activity List for the pharmacist to edit and verify. One time/stat orders, now dose, as well as edits made to medication orders from other integrated applications, are other examples of activities that are communicated to PHA staff to review.
Bedside Medication Verification (BMV) allows organizations to utilize real-time barcode scanning technology to improve patient safety and increase efficiency. Prior to medication administration, a patient’s armband is scanned to verify their identity. This process, along with scanning the barcode on medication packaging, automates medication administration and provides an additional level of patient safety to help ensure the five rights of medication management: (1) right patient, (2) right medication, (3) right dosage, (4) right route, and (5) right time.
Our internal EHR Patient Safety Review Board provides guidelines, education, and action plans to reduce patient safety events and improve customer satisfaction. Customers can visit our EHR Safety Corner for more information.
Sponsored by the EHR PSRB, members of the Customer EHR Patient Safety Advisory Board (CEPSAB) — comprised of nurses, pharmacists, physicians, and quality experts — meet bi-annually. They are dedicated to creating the safest use of our EHR across all applications and from all healthcare stakeholder perspectives. In support of this mission, the CEPSAB members adhere to the expectations outlined in their compact.
The MEDITECH Regulatory group closely follows federal, state and international requirements in MEDITECH’s software in order to ensure quality, safety, and compliance. In addition to following governmental requirements, the team also follows recommendations made by sources, including the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP), a non-profit organization that is devoted to making recommendations to help prevent medication errors. Workflow recommendations, software changes, and IDEA recommendations are also based on ISMP guidelines. As an example, KB article 65472 outlines recommendations for avoiding the use of error prone abbreviations per ISMP.
MEDITECH plays an integral role in ensuring our software reduces medication errors and promotes safe medication practices, to support medication safety for all.
Patient safety is a collaborative effort between MEDITECH and you — your candid feedback is appreciated. Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback regarding EHR Safety, the EHR Safety Corner, the Priority Event (PE) Process or Notifications, and/or Safety Workflow/Education.
Please contact Nichole Sikora, manager, Patient Safety/Priority Event Management.