Background
Medication errors remain the second most common type of medical incident reported in hospitals, and of all medication errors, omission or overdose of medicines occurs most frequently. Reducing all errors will significantly improve patient safety and the quality use of medicines. The Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care and the National E-Health Transition Authority (NEHTA) are working to reduce medication errors in hospitals through the release of Electronic Medication Management Systems: A Guide to Safe Implementation (PDF 3353 KB).Hospital electronic medication management systems (EMMS) enable prescribing, supply and administration of medicines to be completed electronically. Electronic medication management (EMM) covers the hospital medication cycle including prescribing by doctors, review and dispensing of medication orders by pharmacists, and administration of medications by nurses. EMM can reduce medication errors through improved prescription legibility, dose calculation and clinical decision support, and enables best practice information to be more readily available to prescribers and improves linkages between clinical information systems1. EMM can also improve efficiency in the medication management process, such as reducing the time required to locate paper medication charts or to supply non-imprest medicines.
EMM systems can reduce medication errors, but clinical information systems also have the potential to introduce new types of error2. With many Australian hospitals planning to implement EMM systems, it is essential that this risk is minimised by considering the international literature and learning from the experiences of early Australian EMM system implementations.
Implementing an EMM system within a hospital is a major transformational project that substantially affects clinical service delivery, hospital departments and the work of clinicians. It requires extensive pre-implementation planning, including initial scoping, developing a business case, evaluating and selecting an EMM system product, and conducting a detailed implementation planning study. It is essential that the project is adequately resourced, that change is managed effectively, and that the project has the endorsement and full support of the hospital executive and senior clinical staff. The Guide is intended to support successful planning and implementation of EMM systems in hospitals.
1. Westbrook J, et al, The effectiveness of an electronic medication management system to reduce prescribing errors in hospital, 18th Annual Health Informatics Conference, HIC 2010
2. Redwood S, et al, Does the implementation of an electronic prescribing system create unintended medication errors? BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 2011, 11:29
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