The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7233 p132
25 January 2003

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American Society of Health-system Pharmacists summary

British researchers represented in posters session

There were three posters from British hospitals presented at the meeting this year.

The Baxter Healthcare/Guild of Health-care Pharmacists award project entitled, "Epidural infusion of fentanyl and bupivacaine: closing the loop", by Uttam Chouhan and Richard Wynne (Glan Clwyd Hospital, Rhyl) described the introduction of a pharmacy-led service that used standardised infusion devices and standardised drug concentrations for epidural infusions for post-operative pain control. The use of large-volume infusions, with a standard pump, avoided the need for frequent syringe changes, thereby reducing nursing time and improving pain control and patient safety. The pumps are pre-set in the pharmacy and this goes some way towards reducing dosing errors.

The AAH Hospital Pharmacy Technician of the Year award poster was presented by Jason Hobson, chief technician, Barnsley District General Hospital. His project entitled, "Extending the role of the pharmacy technician to work in the pharmacy-run anticoagulant clinic", had shown that re-engineering the service to include a pharmacy technician had released pharmacist time for additional clinical duties.

Sarah Mansell, senior clinical pharmacist, and Helen Williams, clinical pharmacy technician, from Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Royal Hospital, presented a poster entitled, "The impact of a clinical pharmacy service on preventing medication errors on an emergency assessment unit". As part of this service the clinical pharmacy technician took over responsibility for documentation of the medication history and identification of compliance problems. Over a 10-week period 260 out of 2,139 admissions were seen by one or both of the authors. Medication-related problems were identified in 75 of these.