Maximizing student potential: Lessons for pharmacy programs from the patient safety movement.

Higher education institutions (HEIs), including pharmacy programs, are experiencing growing pressure from the public and policy makers to develop student-centered learning experiences that meet societal needs. While HEIs may have in-house initiatives to meet such challenges, there are also opportunities for cross-domain learning and application of useful concepts from other sectors. One such sector that lends itself to cross-domain learning is the healthcare industry. Like HEIs, the healthcare industry has been experiencing pressure from its stakeholders, in this case, to address patient safety gaps. These forces intensified at the turn of the century leading to the emergence of what is now known as the patient safety movement, which enabled increased advocacy, education, and research to reduce healthcare-related harm. Despite persistent challenges, a key achievement of the patient safety movement has been application of a systems framework to understand and solve patient safety gaps. That is, patient safety gaps are often a result of system defects rather than isolated acts of individual workers operating in a complex social and technical work setting (often referred to as sociotechnical system). Commonly used systems frameworks describe a sociotechnical system through its components: 1) structure (e.g., people, tools/technology, physical workspaces); 2) processes (e.g., medication administration); and 3) outcomes (e.g., medication safety, patient satisfaction). At their core, both HEIs and healthcare organizations are complex sociotechnical systems that organize their structures to support specific processes - learning in HEIs and patient safety in healthcare - to ultimately improve outcomes for students and patients, respectively. This paper describes parallels between HEIs and the healthcare domain to illustrate how patient safety concepts and practices from healthcare can be adapted to HEIs in order to enhance educational structures, processes, and learning outcomes.

Investigating multiple sources of data for smart infusion pump and electronic health record interoperability.

PURPOSE: Infusion pump data, which describe compliance to dose-error reduction software among other metrics, are retrievable from infusion pump vendor software, electronic health record (EHR) systems, and regional and national data repositories such as the Regenstrief National Center for Medical Device Informatics (REMEDI). Smart infusion pump and EHR interoperability has added to the granularity and complexity of data collected, and clinicians are challenged with efficiently comprehending and interpreting the data and reports available. SUMMARY: Collaborative partnerships between the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety and the Regenstrief Center for Healthcare Engineering allowed for clinicians, informaticists, researchers, and engineers to compare the information gained and strengths of using smart infusion pumps, EHR, and REMEDI to assess hospital medication safety in a setting of interoperability. Seven reporting capabilities were used to compare available reports, and 2 hypothetical scenarios were developed to highlight these processes. Infusion pump vendor-provided software and reports were found to provide the most usable information for detailed infusion reporting, while the EHR was strongly usable for interoperability compliance and REMEDI excelled in benchmarking capabilities. CONCLUSION: While infusion analytics needs may differ across health systems, a better understanding of the strengths of infusion pump data and EHR data may help provide structure and direction in the infusion analytics process. Infusion data repositories such as REMEDI are useful tools to obtain information in a way not delivered by smart pump data.

Healthcare Professionals Risk Assessments for Alert Overrides in High-Risk IV Infusions Using Simulated Scenarios.

This study aimed to use healthcare professionals' assessments to calculate expected risk of intravenous (IV) infusion harm for simulated high-risk medications that exceed soft limits and to investigate the impact of relevant risk factors. We designed 30 infusion scenarios for four high-risk medications, propofol, morphine, insulin, and heparin, infused in adult intensive care unit (AICU) and adult medical and surgical care unit (AMSU). A total of 20 pharmacists and 5 nurses provided their assessed expected risk of harm in each scenario. Descriptive statistics, analysis of variance with least square mean, and post hoc test were conducted to test the effects of field limit type, soft (SoftMax), and hard maximum drug limit types (HardMax), and care area-medication combination on risk of harm. The results showed that overdosing scenarios with continuous and bolus dose limit types were assessed with significantly higher risks than those of bolus dose rate type. An overdose infusion in AICU over a large SoftMax was assessed to be of higher risk than over a small one, but not in AMSU. For overdose infusions with three levels of drug amount, greater drug amount in AICU and AMSU was assessed to have higher risk, except insignificant risk difference between the infusions with higher and moderate drug amount in AMSU. This study obtained expected risk for simulated high-risk IV infusions and found that different field limit and SoftMax types can affect expected risk based on healthcare professionals' perspectives. The findings will be regarded as benchmarks for validating risk quantification models in future research.

Third Consensus Development Conference on the Safety of Intravenous Drug Delivery Systems-2018.

PURPOSE: The Third Consensus Conference on the Safety of Intravenous Drug Delivery Systems was convened to evaluate the benefits and risks of available systems and assess ongoing threats to the safety of intravenous drug delivery. SUMMARY: The Third Consensus Conference on the Safety of Intravenous Drug Delivery Systems convened in Chicago, Illinois in November 2018. An expert panel of healthcare providers with experience in medication quality and safety, pharmacy and nursing operations, information technology, and/or sterile compounding led the conference. An experienced audience of approximately 30 healthcare leaders provided feedback to the panel via preconference survey and during the conference. Additionally, expert speakers presented on a range of issues, including the effects of drug shortages, the impact of standards and guidelines, and patient and administrator perspectives on the importance of intravenous drug delivery safety. CONCLUSION: At the end of the conference, the expert panel concluded that manufacturer ready-to-use products remain the safest intravenous drug delivery system due to their many benefits and low overall risk profile. The panel identified various ongoing threats to the safety of intravenous drug delivery, with major concerns including the impact of drug shortages and lack of intravenous product standardization. Finally, the panel agreed upon a series of statements designed to advance the safety of intravenous drug delivery in healthcare institutions.

High-alert medication administration and intravenous smart pumps: A descriptive analysis of clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) describes high alert medications (HAM) as medications that represent a heightened risk of patient harm when used in error. IV smart pumps with dose error reduction systems (DERS) were created to help address medication administration errors. Compliance with DERS provides a measure of how accurately a hospital uses smart pump technology to reduce IV medication error. OBJECTIVE: The primary purpose of this research was to use the REMEDI dataset, an aggregate, multi-hospital database inclusive of smart pump analytics, to improve the current understanding of clinical practices for IV HAM administration. METHODS: Descriptive analyses and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used to test for differences in the mean DERS alert override rate, and mean DERS alert override to reprogram ratio between non-HAM and HAM overall, by hospital system, and by pump type. RESULTS: High mean override rates for non-HAM (73.8%) and HAM (75.8%) and high override to reprogram ratios for both non-HAM (7.30) and HAM (9.92) were seen. No significant differences were found in override rates (p = 0.23) and override to reprogram ratios (p = 0.06) between non-HAM and HAM. By hospital system, significant variability in override rates and override to reprogram ratios were seen. By pump type, there were no significant differences in the mean override rates (Baxter: p = 0.09; BD p = 0.34; ICU Medical p = 0.18) and the mean override to reprogram ratios (Baxter p = 0.84; BD p = 0.03; ICU Medical p = 0.63) between non-HAM and HAM. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that the majority of alerts generated are bypassed by clinicians at the point of care, a symptom of alert fatigue. Given the potential for significant patient harm with HAM and the high DERS alert override rates that routinely occur during IV medication administration, this study provides further support for clinician-driven IV smart pump innovation to improve alert fatigue.

Comparative Safety, Efficiency, and Nursing Preference Among 3 Methods for Intravenous Push Medication Preparation: A Randomized Crossover Simulation Study.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to compare total time for drug preparation, associated errors, and nurses' preferences among 3 different intravenous (IV) push medication methods. RESEARCH DESIGN: A randomized crossover simulation design was used to compare total time for drug preparation and incidence of medication preparation errors between BD Simplist (BDS), Carpuject (CJ), and traditional vial-and-syringe process (TVSP). Three medication preparation areas were created to mimic a hospital setting. Twenty-four critical care nurses were asked to prepare an IV dose of diphenhydramine, ketorolac, and morphine in random order using BDS, CJ, and TVSP, also in random order. Total time for the preparation of each drug was measured. Medication preparation errors were noted. At the start of the study, nurses were surveyed about their stress levels regarding aspects of IV push medications. At completion, nurses were asked to rank order from the most to the least preferred administration method. RESULTS: Mean time in seconds for drug preparation was significantly shorter (P < 0.004) with BDS (28.7; 95% confidence interval [CI], 23.3-34.2) and CJ (28.3; 95% CI, 23.1-33.5) compared with TSVP (65.8; 95% CI, 57.7-73.9). The time difference between BDS and CJ was not statistically significant. Medication preparation errors were significantly reduced with BDS compared with both CJ and TVSP (1.4% versus 77.8% versus 73.6%; P < 0.001). The BDS was ranked by nurses as the most preferred method. CONCLUSIONS: The BD Simplist system for IV push medications may offer nurses an opportunity to reduce steps and reduce errors during medication preparation.

Standardizing concentrations of adult drug infusions in Indiana.

PURPOSE: A multidisciplinary, consensus-driven initiative to promote the use of standardized medication concentrations for adult drug infusions across the state of Indiana is described. METHODS: To accomplish development of the Indiana Standard Concentrations of Adult Drug Infusions List ("the Indiana List"), several available lists of i.v. concentrations were compiled, consolidated, and compared. Lists of adult standardized i.v. concentrations were primarily drawn from Indiana regional patient safety coalitions, published literature, and publicly available lists of recommended i.v. concentrations. The standardization project, which expanded initial work completed by the Indianapolis Coalition for Patient Safety, was conducted in conjunction with Purdue University's Center for Medication Safety Advancement, the Indiana Hospital Association, and the 11 regional patient safety coalitions across the state. RESULTS: After a review of 9 existing lists of standard i.v. concentrations, an initial list of 69 concentrations representing a total of 37 medications was derived; 34 of those concentrations were represented on at least 1 of the 3 evaluated Indiana regional patient safety coalition lists. A statewide interdisciplinary work group of representatives of regional patient safety coalitions and 9 health systems representing a total of 81 hospitals ranging from academic medical centers to critical access hospitals assembled to develop consensus on a final list of standard medication concentrations for adult i.v. infusions. CONCLUSION: A final list of 28 concentrations of 26 medications was identified for the recommended Indiana List by an interdisciplinary work group. A checklist of considerations for implementation was also developed.

Reaching out to clinicians: implementation of a computerized alert system.

Several published articles have identified that providing automated, computer-generated clinical alerts about potentially critical clinical situations should result in better quality of care. In 1999, the pharmacy department at a community hospital network implemented and refined a commercially available, computerized clinical alert system. This case report discusses the implementation process, gives examples of how the system is used, and describes results following implementation. The use of the clinical alert system in this hospital network resulted in improved patient safety as well as in greater efficiency and decreased costs.