Introduction
Every medical facility always focuses on the safety and high-quality of patient medications. Making sure patients get the right medication is essential, as wrong medication can have very adverse long-term effects on the patients’ health, even possibly death. Sometimes, errors occur during the process of administering medication to the patients. When providing health care services to the patients, their safety should be a top priority for any healthcare management team. However, in the past, there have been some errors which have been occurring during the provision of the healthcare services (Maaskant, Vermeulen, Apampa, Fernando, Ghaleb, Neubert, & Soe, 2015). Preventing medical errors is a crucial thing for every healthcare facility and all providers. There are numerous initiatives which have been created to make sure the organization maintains high-quality healthcare services and minimizing medication errors.
Initiatives to Minimize Medication Errors
Deployment of Electronic Health Records
To reduce the issue of medication errors, the department should use information technology to improve the healthcare services while reducing the number of errors. Through the use of computerized physician order entry, the patients’ care will be improved (Schiff, Amato, Eguale, Boehne, Wright, Koppel, & Bates, 2015). Through the use of the Electronic Health Records within the facility, the health informatics department will be able to share medication information with all the medical service providers efficiently and increase the accuracy of this information. The system will play a critical role in ensuring issues of poor handwriting or any omissions in prescription due to human error are minimized. The technology is important in ensuring the accuracy of the information is improved significantly.
Data Determinants
To determine the successfulness of the new EHR system and how it affects the health service provision, analysis of the change regarding the number of errors before and after the implementation of the system will be needed. Through looking at the data, it will be possible to understand how the EHR has improved the accuracy of data and prescriptions.
Implementation of Plan
To implement the process well, there should be excellent interdepartmental communication. This can be done through creating open communication policies within the whole organization. A plan to train all employees will be needed to make sure all employees know how the system works and everyone is on the same page.
Interdepartmental Communication Channels
The organization should not have boundaries in communication strategies. Having frequent interdepartmental meetings is critical in the process of implementing this project. Also, there is a need for the organization to have different ways to pass information to all the employees regardless of their department. For instance, email communication, phone calls and also face-to-face meetings will be crucial to facilitate the implementation of the new system.
Data Interpretation
Various data interpretation methods will be used including the use of pie charts, bar charts, numerical tables, line graphs as well as column charts. These will make it easier to share information among all the stakeholders.
Hypothetical Outcomes on Patient Care
When the improved system is implemented, there are numerous improvements to the healthcare service in the organization. The number of errors in the process of providing healthcare services will be minimized significantly, reducing the harm to patients by a large margin. The expected result is accuracy levels improving to 99 percent.
Hypothetical Outcomes on the Culture
With the system, the healthcare providers will always be using the system for all data related activities, to reduce patient suffering. The system and this new initiative will be the norm for all the patients. The system will improve the communication between the different departments, and this will be essential in creating a better working environment to provide high-quality healthcare services to the patients (Makary & Daniel, 2016).
References
Maaskant, J. M., Vermeulen, H., Apampa, B., Fernando, B., Ghaleb, M. A., Neubert, A., ... & Soe, A. (2015). Interventions for reducing medication errors in children in hospital. The Cochrane Library.
Makary, M. A., & Daniel, M. (2016). Medical error-the third leading cause of death in the US. BMJ: British Medical Journal (Online), 353.
Schiff, G. D., Amato, M. G., Eguale, T., Boehne, J. J., Wright, A., Koppel, R., ... & Bates, D. W. (2015). Computerised physician order entry-related medication errors: analysis of reported errors and vulnerability testing of current systems. BMJ Qual Saf, 24(4), 264-271.