The number of prescription drugs on the market continues to increase. Practically every other television commercial explains the benefit of another drug designed to further ease our ailments and make our lives easier.
Many of these new pharmaceuticals have dramatically increased people’s quality of life. Yet the sheer number of different prescriptions and doses in existence has made following safe medication practices more important than ever.
An entire nonprofit organization is devoted to exactly that: ensuring medication safety. The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) began in 1975 with a mission of preventing medication error and promoting safe medication use.
A voluntary error-reporting program makes up the foundation of ISMP’s efforts. Health care facilities around the country voluntarily report medication errors to ISMP in order to better understand their causes and aid the medical community as a whole in improving medication safety efforts.
As new technology emerges to improve medication safety, the ISMP has stepped up its role to include the moderation and certification of these applications.
Automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) have become common in hospitals across America to assist health care professionals with medication distribution, storage, security and retrieval. According to a 2007 survey in ISMP’s Medication Safety Alert! And Nurse Advise-ERR newsletters, over 90 percent of readers had ADCs in their facilities.
ADCs play a large role in medication safety due to their popularity and widespread use as a primary means of drug distribution. In 2007, ISMP began hosting an annual summit on ADC safety. From this, the ISMP introduced a set of standardized safety guidelines for the use of ADCs in 2008. These guidelines include:
• Ensure ideal environmental conditions for ADC use
• Ensure ADC system security
• Use pharmacy-profiled ADCs
• Define safe ADC restocking processes
• Provide staff education and competency validation
Health care services provider McKesson has sponsored the ISMP’s ADC safety summits for the past two years. McKesson’s AcuDose-Rx medication dispensing cabinets address all 2008 ISMP Guidelines for the Safe Use of Medication Dispensing Cabinets. Together with McKesson’s Connect-Rx software, the AcuDose-Rx integrates with point-of-care administration tools and pharmacy automation equipment to increase medication dispensing efficiency and improve medication safety.
As the ISMP Guidelines for the Safe Use of Medication Dispensing Cabinets become more widely used, medication safety will further increase.
