By Steve Kessinger, Cape Coral Hospital
"Optimizing patient outcomes through interdisciplinary medication management" is our pharmacy department's purpose. Let me elaborate on our recent transition to fulfill that objective.
The implementation of an electronic medical record system has profoundly affected efforts to improve medication safety and advance pharmacy practice. Perhaps the most noteworthy endeavor has been the implementation of computerized physician order management (CPOM) functionality. Prior to this project, copies of hand-written medication orders were scanned to the pharmacy department for manual transcription into a patient's medication profile.
Pharmacists spend most of their time reviewing and transcribing handwritten information into electronic data. Once a day, a paper copy of the medication administration record (MAR) was printed on the nursing unit. Nurses manually recorded doses administered and made hand-written changes to this medical record document as the medical staff made drug therapy changes during the day. >> Read the full Hospital Impact post