Pharmacy Daily | Pharmacists vital for EMM

EMERGENCY Medicine pharmacists have a critical role in preventing errors at the prescribing stage, even when the hospital is using electronic medicines management (EMM), according to an article in the latest issue of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia's Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research (JPPR).

A NSW research team examined the potential impact of an EMM system on safety-critical prescribing errors in an emergency department to find "they are no substitute for the expertise of Emergency Medicine pharmacists in preventing errors at the prescribing stage".

"Although eMMS (EMM systems) have the capacity to prevent a high proportion of safety-critical legal or procedural errors in the Emergency Department, clinical prescribing errors in this category were unlikely to be prevented by using eMMS," authors wrote.

"Further investigation of these more severe error types could guide the design of eMMS decision support to improve system effectiveness," they concluded.

Authors also referenced a brief report from The Prince Charles and Royal Brisbane and Women's hospital in Queensland where hospital pharmacists worked corroboratively in doctor-pharmacist prescribing in the emergency setting.

"In all, 146 orders prescribed by pharmacists and 145 orders prescribed by medical officers were reviewed for safety," authors said.

"Of these, 90% of orders written by the pharmacist were error free, compared with 26% written by medical officers.

"The incorporation of pharmacist prescribers into the admissions process has the potential to improve patient safety and decrease medication errors."

Highlighting the butterfly chaos theory effect of risks associated with inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics or steroids, Editor-in-Chief Dr Chris Alderman said, "The downstream influence of pharmacy services in the ED is no subtle butterfly effect: the costs of not acting are too large and the benefits of change are too great to ignore".