Pharmacy Department Helps Drive Patient Safety at Riverview Hospital Association
(2/7/2008)

Riverview Hospital Association (Wisconsin Rapids, WI), a MEDITECH customer for ten years, is doing big things in its Pharmacy department of four pharmacists and six technicians. With the help of MEDITECH's Pharmacy products, the Pharmacy department has been helping to ensure this 99-bed, rural hospital is achieving its patient safety goals.

"Safety for our patients is our primary concern," states Dennis Malone, PharmD, Director of Pharmacy, at Riverview Hospital Association. "We strive to be health care leaders in the communities we serve and MEDITECH's Pharmacy products help make that possible."

Medication errors and near misses have been reduced at Riverview, where staff members are using MEDITECH's Pharmacy, Electronic Medication Record (eMAR), and Bedside Verification (BV) products. Malone explains, "We've seen a dramatic decrease in medication and allergy issues. We're also proud to report we're running a perpetual inventory and implementing a paperless pharmacy, while continuing to expand our Advanced Clinical System from MEDITECH throughout our organization."

MEDITECH System Prevents Errors Hospital-Wide
Riverview's patients are benefiting from the MEDITECH safety checks and on-line patient allergy information every day. The alert messages in the MEDITECH system have been particularly helpful.

"When one of our nurses was set to administer an eye drop, a warning message popped up on her screen for that particular patient," explains Laura Smolarek, I.T. systems analyst at Riverview Hospital Association. "The patient was allergic to an ingredient in the fluid. Without the checks and balances the software provides, the clinician may not have caught the error so early."

In addition to the patient safety checks within the MEDITECH Pharmacy application, Riverview is also finding success with Ambulatory Order Management for medication reconciliation. According to Penny Cleworth, who is both an I.T. clinical analyst and nurse at Riverview Hospital Association, "Since go-LIVE, the process has become more streamlined than before, and we are able to go completely paperless by capturing all patient medications electronically at each point of care."

In fact, since the technology has been added to Riverview's outpatient areas, error rates have dropped to zero in all areas where the product has been implemented. "The only exception was an error occurring in one area where the product hadn't yet been implemented," notes Malone. "Upon realizing this, the director of the department asked us to implement the system."

Riverview not only prides itself in continuously looking for ways to make its system more safe and efficient, but also using I.T. to reach out to the community. Cleworth describes the hospital's recently sponsored public medication clinic. "We invited the community to our clinic day, where people could provide us a list of their current medications," she explains. "If these participating individuals are ever admitted into our hospital in the future, care providers and patients alike will benefit because their medications are already populated in the system."

As a result of information the hospital collected during the clinic, nurses can check any new medications against historical medications already in the system. "This is a huge time saver for nurses and patients alike. The reconciliation process is quicker and, most importantly, medications are always up-to-date," says Cleworth.

Inter-departmental Collaboration Propels I.T. Initiative
Though driven by the Pharmacy department, the patient safety and I.T. initiatives at Riverview have been successful because of the collaboration among the I.T department, the Pharmacy, and MEDITECH's implementation and service teams. In addition, staff members at Riverview have shown a keen interest in taking on the new challenges brought about by the patient safety initiative, according to Malone. "There has been minimal resistance to technology and our staff is always looking for ways to enhance patient safety," he says.

In order to ensure all staff members are on board with I.T. initiatives, Riverview implemented several education and morale building initiatives. During Bedside Verification and eMAR training, Riverview implemented a 'no person left behind' project. "We made sure all staff members knew how to perform the required tasks such as log on to the eMAR and use the drug dictionaries," explains Malone.

He adds that several key players, including Julia Atkinson, a pharmacy technician and a MEDITECH Pharmacy product leader at Riverview Hospital Association, helped to spearhead the project and bring everyone on board. "Julia delegated responsibilities so everyone learned specific aspects of the system," explains Malone. "However, we wanted everyone to be knowledgeable and fully accountable. We made sure everyone participated during the system testing so they'd all be ready once we went LIVE."

Similarly, several other staff members were especially valuable during the training process because they were able to bridge the various hospital disciplines including I.T. and nursing. "I'm proud I was able to help with decision making on both the I.T and clinical side of things, particularly when ensuring our transition from a handwritten to an electronic MAR would support nurse workflow," says Cleworth.

Riverview Hospital Association Prepares for CPOE
Next on the horizon, Riverview is preparing to implement MEDITECH's Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) system. As part of this effort, the hospital is continuing to implement MEDITECH's Advanced Clinical System, including Emergency Department Management (EDM). "Phase 1 of the EDM product implementation will be LIVE by the second quarter of this year, and we expect to have CPOE implemented hospital-wide by the end of next year," according to Malone.

Riverview's accomplishments and future plans reflect the hospital board's forward thinking in its mission to be a leader in its community. "Though we are a small, rural hospital, we are accomplishing feats that many think are possible only for large health care organizations in busy urban centers," says Malone. "We are quite fortunate to have a dynamic hospital team as well as the necessary financial and I.T. resources to support our efforts to deliver safe and quality patient care."

 

About Riverview Hospital Association
Riverview Hospital Association (Wisconsin Rapids, WI) is an independent community-governed health care system that delivers a broad array of local primary care and procedural specialty services to residents. A MEDITECH customer for over ten years, Riverview has been able to achieve their patient safety goals using MEDITECH's Pharmacy, Electronic Medication Record, and Bedside Verification products. Riverview is continually building on its diverse service base and adding new services and technologies, consistent with local population demand.

MEDITECH
Medical Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH Circle
Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com