The administration of High Risk Medications is now monitored at Nij Smellinghe hospital using a new addition to MedEye. By using MedEye CoSign, these medications can now be automatically double checked to ensure greater safety and efficiency. Nij Smellinghe hospital is the world's first hospital to use this method to make medication administrations to patients even safer in cooperation with Mint Solutions.
Double checks for medications
In hospitals, all infusions and injections are considered High Risk Medications, and require a double check by two nurses before each administration. At Nij Smellinghe Hospital, the pharmacy strives to provide this type of medication in pre-prepared packages as much as possible. High Risk Medications are currently tagged with a unique barcode, linked to the digital prescription, and contains information about the drug, dosage and other important details. When the barcode is scanned by MedEye CoSign, at the bedside, all this information is used to verify that the correct medication is administered to the right patient at the right dose at the right time and in the appropriate manner. As a result, administering medication becomes safer and more efficient since MedEye is able to meet most double check requirements without requiring a second nurse.
Closed loop
At Nij Smellinghe hospital, as many medications as possible are prepared for administration by fully automated IV stations. The robot tags the preparations with a unique barcode, and scanning the code on the patient’s wrist band allows hospital staff to check that the medication in question was indeed prescribed for this patient in this form and dosage. MedEye then helps the nurse to automatically verify and document the administration in one handling. This ‘closed loop’ ensures optimal safety in the process of administering medication to patients.
Nij Smellinghe and Mint Solutions are currently running a two-phase pilot programme with MedEye CoSign, in one nursing department. Patients and hospital staff have reacted positively to the new method and the expectation is that this system will be implemented throughout the entire hospital following the pilot.
Source: www.nijsmellinghe.nl