New digitised process improving safety and speed of prescribing and dispensing medications at UHDB
A new digitised process for prescribing and dispensing medications at UHDB is benefiting patients and staff-alike by making it easier than ever for people to receive the right medicines for them.
UHDB is the first Trust in the country to have introduced a ‘closed loop medication supply’ process that better enables clinicians to electronically prescribe patients with the drugs that they need via our Pharmacy department.
By integrating the Trust’s electronic prescribing system and Pharmacy stock control systems, we have been able to move away from the traditional method of manually completing medication requests – saving time and reducing errors when dispensing medicines as a result.
State-of-the-art dispensing robots within the Pharmacy departments at Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital Burton are also used to ensure the correct medications are always picked, with staff also double checking the prescription before sending it to the patient – to “close the loop”.
Medication requests were previously copied manually from handwritten paper documents, whereas the new electronic solution has sped up the dispensing process and made it safer and more accurate, with the prescription being automatically routed from the clinician; straight to the pharmacist.
Clive Newman, Chief Pharmacist at UHDB, said: “Our clinicians and Pharmacy team are benefitting from a much more automated, efficient and accurate process now. It reduces delays in treatment and most significantly, reduces dispensing errors resulting from manual transcription.”
UHDB has worked closely with healthcare and diagnostic software provider Dedalus to offer this new process, following the integration of the Trust’s CareSuite Electronic Patient Record (EPR) and its Pharmacy stock control systems.
The electronic ‘closed loop’ process is underpinned by the use of Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource (FHIR) recognised standards, with Dedalus representing the first EPR system vendor in the UK to deliver this approach in a live hospital setting.
Colin Henderson, Regional General Manager, Dedalus Group, UK & Ireland, said: “We are proud to be working with Derby and Burton to enhance patient safety through its EPR and provide a seamless, digital solution – starting from prescribing through to medication dispensing. Digitising the process through the EPR provides the Trust with the ability to dispense faster, which is particularly beneficial when hospitals are under significant pressures.”