Alessandrini: They’re extremely low. We were low to begin with, because of a lot of safety measures that were already in place. And even now, we’re probably approaching a four or five sigma now in terms of errors. We talk about errors per 1,000 patient days now, we no longer talk about individual errors. Because of the closed-loop system we have in place, most events are close calls now.
But it has improved since barcoding and the eMAR, right?
Alessandrini: Absolutely.
Sheridan: And since the shift to the Omnicell. Sometimes, if a patient was in the ICU and was moved, you had to move meds with the patients, and there might be problems. But our errors are extremely low. The benchmarking nationally is not really available, because of variations in reporting patterns, etc. But we monitor that on every level, and the error level remains extremely low. And that’s why we insisted and insist on having nursing partnering with pharmacy, as we go through trials on new technologies. So we have some pretty good research data on that.
I’m sure with CPOE that you brought the physicians in to sit down with the nurses and pharmacy to strengthen things further, right?
Sheridan: We have a physician implementation team working with all the other teams; and IT has been wonderful. And physicians are driving that process around order entry, so that there’s ownership and buy-in in that process.
What are you hoping will happen once you’re fully implemented on CPOE?
Alessandrini: One of the things we’ve learned is that for clinical pharmacists to intervene, they would have to be there with the physicians, or you’d lose the opportunity. We are working closely with physicians and pharmacists on creating appropriate, but not burdensome, speed bumps, so that the appropriate interventions will happen while the physician is at the terminal, to appropriately adjust for height and weight, renal function, etc., so that the pharmacist will be freed up for other opportunities, such as antibiotic stewardship, a program for selection of the correct antibiotic for the culture.
Sheridan: And having CPOE will enhance that opportunity.
