Patient safety
enhance stock control, and have data easily available to support regulatory and compliance needs for audits thanks to the hospital’s fully digital solutions. This is where having complete end-to-end connected medication management solutions for the entire hospital is beneficial. We must strengthen the technological and analytical base if we are to harness the full potential of connected medication management.
A new approach to preventing medication errors There are options available that could put an end to the antiquated procedures we currently have in place. It is very difficult and tedious to calculate the true cost of staff time spent on manual, mundane tasks or time dedicated to investigating near misses or errors that where undetected and naturally required corrective actions to ensure they don’t recur. This is expensive and supports the rationale for hospital automation. Implementing end-to-end digital solutions is vital. One of the main challenges facing the NHS is finance, rather than asking “how can we afford to do this?” the question should be “how can we afford not to do this?”7
There is no denying the
long-term financial advantage. Despite all of the current challenges facing the NHS, maintaining a high standard for patient safety, particularly the avoidable harm from preventable medication errors, is paramount. Building a culture of safety and trust that involves healthcare professionals, robotics, organisations and patients is essential for high quality of healthcare delivery. Financial gains, therefore, are secondary to the main priority. Hospitals should have access to capital budgets to speed up the adoption of connected medication management across the full end-to-end supply chain. To ensure that it allows for real investment in a robust medication management process, this money should be differentiated from financing for electronic prescribing. In order to help the NHS combat inflationary pressures, an additional £3.3 billion will be allocated over the course of the next two years, Jeremy Hunt announced in his autumn statement to the Commons; part of which would ideally go towards to adoption of automation. The additional investment has been welcomed by NHS England, whose chief executive, Amanda Pritchard, has called it “sufficient.” This is significant because HM Treasury (HMT) designated this as “new” money rather than money that was transferred from another area of the budget.8 A proactive approach should be taken to
prevent medication errors rather than a reactive one; there is a need to add value to patient care. HCPs are often more confident using technology that they are accustomed to and
that has been around for a while, rather than new technology which is unfamiliar. Despite the clear advantages, the implementation process requires attention, and the technology must be tested and proven to be reliable to ensure that it is appropriate and fit for purpose. Automating clerical tasks would be where
technology can be most helpful because it can free up nurses’ time to do the tasks that they, as individuals, and from an organisation’s perspective, feel will add most value to patients in their care, from supporting patients and their relatives, to education and training. All technology, however, is only as good as
how successfully it is implemented. Therefore, healthcare professionals, who are expected to make the best use of equipment, need frequent training and must operate in an environment that embraces technology. Ultimately, collaboration between
stakeholders, across the healthcare sector, and technology providers is key to eradicating medication errors across the entire patient journey, sustaining healthcare workers, and optimising technology to improve overall patient safety. There is an opportunity to shape the NHS and create an environment where technology is embraced with the goal of improving healthcare for future generations.
References 1 Elliot R, Camacho E, Campbell F, et al. 2018. Prevalence and Economic Burden of Medication Errors in the NHS in England.
2 Best C. 2022. The Burden of Medication Error. The Queen’s Nursing Institute. Available at:
https://qni.org.uk/the-burden-of-medication- error/. Last accessed: February 2023.
3 NHS England. The NHS Patient Safety Strategy. Available at:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/ patient-safety/the-nhs-patient-safety- strategy/. Last accessed: December 2022
4 House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee. 2022. Workforce: recruitment, training and retention in health and social care.
Available at:
https://publications.parliament. uk/pa/cm5803/cmselect/cmhealth/115/
report.html. Last accessed: November 2022
5 Royal College of Nursing. Medicines Management: An overview for nursing. 2020. Available at:
https://www.rcn.org.uk/-/ media/royal-college-of-nursing/documents/ publications/2020/january/009-018.pdf Last accessed: March 2023
6 Center for Health Transformation. 2008. Electronic Prescribing: Building, Deploying and Using E-prescribing to Save Lives and Save Money. Available at:
https://joinup.ec.europa. eu/sites/default/files/document/2014-12/ media2463.pdf Last accessed: January 2023
7 Modelling what good looks like: An automation approach to addressing medication error. [Presented at HSJ Patient Safety Congress. 24 October 2022.]
8 Barron. J. NHS confederation. Autumn Statement 2022: what you need to know. Available at:
https://www.nhsconfed.org/ publications/autumn-statement-2022-0 Last accessed: November 2022
About the author CSJ
Director of medical affairs at BD, Dipak Duggal is an accomplished former NHS Director of Pharmacy, a Hospital Executive Director and Senior Management Consultant. He is experienced in innovative managed services and directs a global healthcare technology medical affairs division, having previously led the solutions and marketing division, delivering strategic, impactful change and economic value. Previously, Dipak was a Hospital Clinical and Operational Director, in acute, complex provider and payor hospital environments, accountable for service delivery, medication management and error optimisation, national patient flow targets, quality and financial performance at exemplar organisations.
September 2023 I
www.clinicalservicesjournal.com 55
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76
