ISMP's Updated Guidelines
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) has revised their guidelines which are focused on issues that deal with how information about medications is communicated in electronic formats.
ISMP outlines six main areas to focus on:
- Safe presentation of drug names.
- Presentation of doses, dosing units, weights, measures, and directions.
- Safe presentation of selection menus and search options.
- Safe presentation of complete medication orders or prescriptions.
- Design features of electronic systems related to medication information.
- Design features of electronic systems must address patient information associated with medication safety.
Download the complete guidelines for free.
This article falls under Clinical/Patient Safety and Technology in the Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) risk domains.
Clinical/Patient Safety
Risks associated with the delivery of care to patients, residents and other health care customers. Clinical risks include failure to follow evidence-based practice, medication errors, hospital acquired conditions (HAC), serious safety events (SSE), health care equity, opportunities to improve safety within the care environments, and others.
Technology
This domain covers machines, hardware, equipment, devices, wearable technologies and tools, but can also include techniques, systems and methods of organization. Health care has seen an escalation in the use of technology for clinical diagnosis and treatment, training and education, information storage and retrieval, and asset preservation. Examples also include Electronic Health Records (EHR) and Meaningful Use, financial and billing systems, social media and cyber security; cyber risks can be significant.