Pharmacists unaware of lack of standards for clinical support tools
BNF is used to validate software alerts |
Pharmacists would welcome training in the use of clinical decision support tools, according to a survey carried out by independent business consultant Sterling Consultants.
The survey of 100 pharmacists revealed that, although 95 per cent consider
clinical data to be key to safer dispensing, 68 per cent admitted they
do not know where data on their patient medication record (PMR) system
come from and 81 per cent were surprised that no standards cover the
production of data used in clinical support tools.
Forty-eight per cent of respondents said they had received no training
in the use of decision support tools and 70 per cent said they would
attend training if it were offered. The survey also found that 87 per
cent of respondents validate clinical decision support alerts that they
doubt, and that a variety of sources are used — 52 per cent consult
the British National Formulary and 5 per cent use Google.
Geoff Mackay, director of Stirling Consultants, said
that as prescription numbers grow and pharmacists embrace emerging clinical
roles, more trust
placed in the clinical elements of PMR systems could result in higher
efficiency.
He said: “Adoption of standards by PMR system vendors
and specialist clinical decision support vendors would go some way to
neutralising some of the user issues and give these valuable tools a
higher profile.”
Mr Mackay suggested pharmacists join a user group, ask where clinical
data come from, ask when data for new products appear on their systems
and ask PMR suppliers about plans to improve clinical decision support. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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