Form expedites medication problem reporting
Are some of the reporting forms used in your organization so unwieldy that your staff avoid filling them out — even if the information culled from them could have a positive impact on quality of care?
This used to be the case with reporting medication incidents and adverse drug reactions at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, LA. "We used to use a generic variance report form in these situations," says Del Currier, BSN, RN, director of Quality Services. "And we used the very same form to cover patient falls and any other variance that took place here."
Nursing staff at this facility found this open-ended form cumbersome to fill out, according to Currier. As a result, it was not used with medication incidents/adverse drug reactions as often as it should have been.
To deal with the problem, the first step taken was to create a completely new form, she says, designed to cover medication incidents and adverse drug reactions exclusively. "We developed a one-page form that predominantly uses check boxes, with the front specific to medication incidents, the back to adverse drug reactions." Also, as part of the new form design, information requested on the medication incident side of the form was expanded to cover incidents involving ordering, prescribing, and administering medications.
There are no multiple copies associated with this form, says Currier. Instead, the completed form, after supervisor signature, is forwarded to pharmacy. In the case of medication incidents, the form makes an intermediate stop in the risk management department, she says, "so that any information they find vital can be extracted."
The new form is accompanied by a self-study education booklet that follows the same design theme, notes Currier. "The front half of the booklet is dedicated to information on medication incidents, how to report them, and why reporting them is so important," she explains. Flipping the booklet over provides a reader with a booklet on adverse drug reactions, with similar types of information.
Several important benefits have been generated by the new form, according to Currier. "Our number of reported incidents has increased because the nursing staff loves the quick new way of reporting," she says. In the future, "We will be seeing pharmacy and quality improvement [QI] work together to trend the data and work toward improvement efforts in the area of medication use." The hospital also plans to use the outcome data generated for QI projects and credentialing purposes, she adds.
[For more information, contact:
• Del Currier at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, 5000 Hennessy Blvd., Baton Rouge, LA 70808. E-mail: [email protected].
To get more information about this and other innovations in health care, point your browser to www.best4health.org, the site of The Best Practice Network, an organization devoted to promoting information-sharing and experience exchange among nurses, physicians, and other health care professionals. For more information on The Best Practice Network, e-mail [email protected] or call (800) 899-2226.]
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