Tips for a Successful Patient Safety Huddle

Tips for a Successful Patient Safety Huddle

Commitment to Continuous Quality Improvement requires regular communication on quality and safety issues. An important way of helping achieve this is through dedicated ‘Patient Safety Huddles’ or ‘Patient Safety Review Meetings’.   A huddle is a short stand-up meeting and can be an effective method of communicating important safety issues in time-poor environments such as healthcare organisations. It is often held before the start of the workday. The frequency, format and length of the huddle will vary based on practice setting, level of risk associated with the services offered and team size. The huddle…Read more …
Pharmapod Attends Medication Error Conference London

Pharmapod Attends Medication Error Conference London

The Medication Error Conference focused on reducing medication errors and improving patient care with a focus on a zero tolerance approach. “Progress has been made over the last decade to detect, report and learn from patient safety incidents, but further improvements are needed to increase the number of incident reports, improve data quality and maximise what is learned from medication errors....Medication errors are any patient safety incidents where there has been an error in the process of prescribing, preparing, dispensing, administering, monitoring or providing advice on medicines. These Patient Safety Incidents can be…Read more …
HPRA Safety Notice – Medical Devices in the Home

HPRA Safety Notice – Medical Devices in the Home

Medical devices that are used in the home have become more sophisticated and complex ranging from hearing aids and nebulisers to more complex infusion pumps and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) units.                               In vitro diagnostic medical devices such as blood glucose meters and INR self testing devices are also routinely used. The benefits are wide-ranging; including improved quality of life and reduced cost of care.  The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) recognises the importance of safe, high quality medical devices that are…Read more …
New Research on Incident Reporting Systems

New Research on Incident Reporting Systems

A new study published in the International Journal for Quality in Health Care shows that electronic management and clinical information systems can be used to improve the rate and quality of error reporting.  The study was carried out in two hospitals in Sydney by a team of researchers from the Centre for Health Systems and Safety Research at Macquarie University Sydney.  They found the reporting rate for medication errors was very low, despite the practice being encouraged by hospital policies and senior management for quality improvement and patient safety standards. This corresponds with…Read more …
Upcoming Superintendent Webinars

Upcoming Superintendent Webinars

The Pharmapod System is now being widely used by superintendents to record and review errors and incidents within their pharmacies. It provides an effective clinical governance tool which ensures the best patient experience in the pharmacy and also helps superintendents demonstrate compliance during inspections.    We host regular webinars for Superintendents to demo our Incident Management System and provide an opportunity for them to ask any questions they may have. The sessions are carried out online and only take 20 mins. Details of our upcoming webinars are: January Webinar Schedule:   Wednesday 28th at…Read more …