Medication Errors Causing Harm
Why is this important?
These indicators are direct measures of the level of safety within a health care organization. The measures have been derived from the National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Hospital Care developed by that National Academy of Sciences.
How WellSpan Compares
The Medication Errors Causing Harm measure does not have a nationally recognized metric or benchmark. WellSpan’s measure is used as an internal gauge so the organization can measure its degree of improvement over time. WellSpan has set the bar as high as it can be set – striving for zero medication errors that cause harm.
Unit of Measurement:
Count
A lower score is better than a higher score.
What we are doing to improve our performance.
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York Hospital implemented a computer controlled, bar-coded medication dispensing system in the pharmacy more than a decade ago. In the coming year, both York Hospital and Gettysburg Hospital will move to electronic medication administration records, to eliminate handwriting and re-writing as a source of error.
This effort should be followed closely by bar-coding medications at the bedside, as well as direct computer order entry by physicians.
Both York Hospital and Gettysburg Hospital, for many years, have had multidisciplinary Medication Safety Committees that continually evaluate WellSpan medication systems and regularly make system changes to improve the safe use of medications. |
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