| Fairview honored for med tracking |
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By Joel Stottrup Fairview Northland Medical Center in Princeton has developed a better system of dispensing the proper medications and has received national recognition for it. Fairview Northland was among six institutions honored by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) last month as a winner of the Innovation Challenge. The award was given during the IHI’s annual national Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care, conducted Dec. 9-12 in Orlando, Fla. It is a recognition of some of the best and brightest ideas, strategies and results in medication reconciliation. Medication reconciliation means identifying and tracking a patient’s medicines throughout their entire hospitalization. The treatment a patient gets at the hospital can result in a change in prescription between the time they enter and leave the hospital. The reconciliation is done throughout the patient’s entire hospitalization through computerized tracking. A team of nurses, pharmacists and physicians reviewed the old system and made improvements. Dr. Greg Schoen, chief medical officer at Fairview Northland, said the national innovation honor speaks to the “hard work so many people put into this project.” Bruce Thompson, pharmacy director at Fairview Northland, explained there are many ways that drugs can be misunderstood by patients. For example there are brand names, Tylenol, being an example, and generic names. The generic name for Tylenol, is acetaminophen, he noted. Also there are many combinations of drugs that interact poorly, Thompson said. A thorough review of each patient’s drugs may result in a doctor telling a patient to stop taking a certain medication they have at home, Thompson said, because a stronger one is given at the hospital. Staff people want to make sure a patient is not taking two of the same drug, Thompson added. Fairview staff people began working on the project sometime between late 2004 and early 2005 and fully implemented it last year. Whenever a patient comes into the medical center here, Thompson said, the pharmacy department updates the patient’s records. Then any doctor at any of the Fairview Northland facilities gets the updated record when seeing the patient, Thompson noted. Fairview Northland has clinics in Princeton, Zimmerman and Milaca. The push for a better system of medication reconciliation, Thompson said, is because of problems that have occurred somewhere in the state and country. The Joint Commission on Accrediting Hospitals started initiating regulations on medication reconciliation in 2006, but Fairview Northland had already started by then, according to Thompson. The regulation says a medication list must be sent to the patient and to the ir-provider, Thompson said. Fairview Northland took it a step farther by updating the clinic records and that’s what the pharmacy for the hospital does, said Thompson. Having a list in a computerized record makes it easier for a doctor to follow along and check off each med during review, Thompson added. The patient is asked to keep their medication list with them, such as in a wallet for quick reference. One example where that can be helpful, Thompson said, would be an accident. Emergency personnel can quickly check out what the patient may be using, if that list is with the accident victim. The improved system has, according to Fairview Northland, brought “dramatic improvement in both the accuracy and completeness of patient medication lists.” The medication vending machine for after hours Fairview Northland’s pharmacy department is also using other new technology to improve the accuracy of giving the proper meds and doses. It is through a big electronic vending machine with drawers and compartments within each drawer. The pharmacy department programs the machine so that only a certain drawer or compartment can be opened to dispense drugs for a specific patient. A nurse could possibly grab the wrong dosage of morphine, for example, if everything is within reach, Thompson said. Fairview Northland is also providing a vending machine setup for dispensing drugs at four other hospitals in the state—Red Wing, Stillwater, Winona and Hastings. Those hospitals can’t afford to have a hospital pharmacy open 24 hours and it is even costly for Fairview Northland to do so, Thompson pointed out. Therefore, by Fairview Northland having its pharmacy open all the time for dispensing medicine to patients, it can also do so for the four listed hospitals after hours. The nurse at one of the other hospitals pulls up the computer screen on the vending machine and punches in the patient name to get the information needed to get the meds prescribed. It works this way: A med vending machine is set up and stocked during the day at each of the four hospitals that Fairview Northland contracts to service for meds. The contracts help pay Fairview’s extra cost and those four other hospitals only pay for the pharmacy service they request. It makes for both improved accuracy and economy of scale, said Thompson. Thompson calls this new style of vending machine med dispensing, a pharmacy that ranges from 40 feet to 400 miles. Four hundred miles is the capability, but the farthest it goes now is to the hospital in Winona, Thompson said, and that is 200 miles. Editor’s note: The hospital pharmacy being spoken of here is not to be confused with the private retail pharmacy seen open certain hours in the main level at Fairview Northland facilities. Comments (0)
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| Campus Notes, February 4, 2010 |
Princeton Union Eagle
P.O. Box 278
Princeton, MN 55371
Telephone: 763-389-1222
Fax: 763-389-1728
