The University Hospitals of Turku, Tampere and Kuopio in Finland use the Medanets app to contribute to safe pharmacotherapy.
An important component of the Medanets app used by these hospitals is a medication feature. The app’s medication feature uses the WHO’s “list of five rights” by providing nurses with real-time information on the right medication, the right dose, the right time, the right route and the right patient in their smartphones. This way, the nurse can access the information concerning the patient’s pharmacotherapy right next to the patient and right before administering the medication.
The nurse continues to be the most important factor in the medication process, but the smartphone app supports them in their work.
“We strive to observe and assess the quality of treatment and the processes of patient care constantly in order to ensure that the patients are provided with services that meet their needs. Introducing the medication feature to the mobile environment has required updating the instructions and processes. But uniform operating methods and practices concerning making entries contribute to patient safety,” says Ville Jalo, Planner of Development Services at the Turku University Hospital.
Nurses have access to the mobile app for care work on their smartphones throughout their rounds. Nurses can identify the right patient by scanning the patient’s patient ID wristband on the medication administration round. The app retrieves all information related to the patient’s medications in real-time from the electronic health record in use. The nurse will then compare this information with the distributed medications. When the nurse has verified the “five rights”, the medication is administered and an entry of this administration is made automatically in the medication section of the electronic health record.
“Real-time information is very important in healthcare, where circumstances change constantly. The patient’s condition may change very quickly, and it is vital to get a reliable overall view of the procedures performed on the patient and medications administered to the patient in such circumstances. It has been shown that information between different professional groups and care units travels faster when it can be entered in the electronic health record in a timely manner,” says Jalo.
However, it must be noted that the administration of a medication is only a single phase of the pharmacotherapy process. In order to minimise the chance of human error, the entire pharmacotherapy process must be analysed and any potential risks must be identified.
References:
1. Elliott RA, et al. (2021): Economic analysis of the prevalence and clinical and economic burden of medication error in England. BMJ Qual Saf.
Source: Medanets