SHARING prescribing data in a standardised format to improve communications between healthcare professionals should result in better patient safety, according to the UK Professional Record Standards Body (PRSB), part of NHS England.
Published at the end of Apr, the PRSB guidance aims to improve patient safety by having up to date and accurate medication information available whenever and wherever it is needed.
The main audience for the guidance document is the front-line healthcare professional, who will be implementing and using prescribing and pharmacy systems which will incorporate a new standard way of expressing medicines information and dosage instructions.
The benefits and purpose of sharing these data along with the need for agreed standards are included along with definitions of what the standards cover and what they will not.
Importantly, the guidance is published in two forms - technical for IT administrators and non-technical for health professionals.
Using compatible systems will enable relevant information about patient medications, including detailed dosage instructions to be accurately communicated when a patient moves from one care setting to another.
"For healthcare systems to communicate this information reliably and accurately there is a need for a standard for medication, its dosage, timings and directions information," the PRSB says.
The intention of computer-computer communication is to reduce manual translation and re-entering of medications information, areas which the PRSB says are prone to errors.
"This should provide safer care for patients, and more efficient and reliable and unambiguous information for professionals."
Access the non-technical guidance at theprsb.org and the technical version at developer.nhs.uk.
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