- Clearly identify what happened to cause a particular incident,
- Determine why it happened through the use of triggering questions and visualization aids, and
- Find SMART solutions to prevent recurrence.
This takes too long? Easier said than done, you say? Well, not if you use The Systems Approach to Quality Assurance for Community Pharmacies.
ACP, in collaboration with the Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada (ISMP Canada), has designed a new resource to help your pharmacy team reduce recurrence of drug incidents and to become competent patient safety advocates.
The Systems Approach to Quality Assurance:
- focuses on improving a pharmacy’s systems and operations, not blaming the individual.
- can easily be integrated into your current drug incident management and reporting processes to prevent incidents from happening.
- will benefit your patients by improving their care and safety.
For a comprehensive description of the system, see page 6 of the Nov/Dec 2011 acpnews.
Online resources
Incident Analysis Process Summary and Quick Reference Guide is designed to assist your pharmacy team to analyze, investigate and document incidents and find SMART solutions for everything from drug incidents to burglary prevention and work flow.
Quality Assurance for Community Pharmacies – The Systems Approach: A Patient Safety Primer provides some additional detail to help your team make the most of this tool. Your PPC will be visiting your pharmacy to assist your team in implementing these quality assurance tools to enhance patient safety in your practice setting.
Narrated PowerPoint presentations:
- Quality Assurance for Community Pharmacies Part I: Leading Up to Systems Analysis of Drug Incidents: A brief presentation outlining the differences between drug incidents, adverse drug events and drug errors, and the organizational process for managing critical incidents.
- Quality Assurance for Community Pharmacies Part II: The Systems Approach to Investigating Drug Incidents: A journey through the incident analysis process, this presentation takes you through an example of a drug incident to illustrate how to apply the principles of systems analysis.
- Quality Assurance for Community Pharmacies Part III: Application of Systems Analysis Beyond Drug Incidents: Workflow and burglary prevention case examples will be used to demonstrate the utility of systems analysis beyond drug incidents.
Review these resources to obtain non-accredited learning CEUs as part of your learning portfolio. Simply document what you have learned by completing a Non-accredited Learning Record. We wish you success on your path to becoming patient safety advocates!
Originally published in the January 24, 2012 issue of The Link
