Putting a value on risk reduction strategies can promote patient safety
Patient safety can be promoted by putting a value on risk reduction strategies, according to Gillian Cavell, deputy director of pharmacy for medication safety, King’s College Hospital, London.
Ms Cavell was speaking at an All-Party
Parliamentary Group on Patient Safety meeting on safe health care procurement earlier this week, chaired
by Howard Stoate MP.
Ms Cavell told the meeting that she had needed to justify the extra £50,000
that her trust paid to reduce the risk associated with potassium chloride
by putting infusion bags rather than vials on wards.
Using the infusion bags eliminated three chances for error in the manipulation
of potassium in each administration. She was able to demonstrate that
the initiative provided value for money because the cost of each step
in the risk reduction process was only 50p.
At the same meeting, George Findlay, consultant in intensive care medicine,
University Hospital Wales, said that clinician autonomy is not good for
patient safety. He advocated “protocol driven medicine” as
a way of
improving safety.
Sir Muir Gray, director of clinical knowledge, process and safety, Connecting
for Health, said that the National Programme for IT would help to improve
patient safety, although implementing the system would bring its own
risks. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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