From Mr I. Nash,
MRPharmS
SIR,—In my recent letter, patronisingly headed “Ideal system”,
I proposed time and place management in the electronic prescribing software
of the future (PJ, October 14, p556).
At the time, I chose not to include the following sentence. With regard to prospective
methadone dispensing, “if we can be confident of the data entry, then we
could give a copy of the collection dates to the client”. The same applies
to all dispensing, and lateral thinking says that one is in a position to give
each patient his or her very own therapeutic record.
Therein lie two fundamental principles. First, that checking the quality of
data entry is the key future role for pharmacists (and suitably qualified technicians)
and is potentially a clinical role through taking responsibility for the patient’s
therapeutic record. Second, if a patient’s drug record is unique and “fire
walled” from any other record, then that should be the basis for barcode
checking of dispensing as an ongoing quality assurance. If a patient is not
taking drug X, then drug X cannot possibly be given to that patient; the only
possible half dozen drugs that the patient can receive are those that have been
prescribed.
Having this level of confidence in the dispensing process will allow other grades
of staff to check the completed product and, where appropriate, provide simple
counselling at the point of supply. In the present day, this level of confidence
would avoid the routine frustration caused by an item getting all the way to
the final check before the pharmacist discovers (or does not discover) a discrepancy
— trivial or significant — that requires the item to be redispensed.
Data will drive the dispensing of the future; it will be the pharmacist’s
role to ensure the accuracy of those data.
Ian Nash
Sheffield