E-system to avoid hospital errors
In a bid to offer quality services to patients and curb medical error or taking wrong dose of medicine by patients, Al Zahra Dubai Hospital has launched the latest intelligent system for managing and dealing electronically drugs prescribed to patients admitted at hospitals which effectively helps to prevent drug errors and enhance patient safety.
Dr Mahaiman Abdul Ghani, Executive Director of Al Zahra Hospital, noted that the new mechanism was adopted to avoid medical errors that are more common in hospitals.
“A recent study showed that approximately five per cent of patients in US hospitals are at risk of a medical errors...”
in a bid to offer quality services to patients and curb medical error or taking wrong dose of medicine by patients, Al Zahra Dubai Hospital has launched the latest intelligent system for managing electronically drugs prescribed to patients admitted at hospitals which effectively helps to prevent drug errors and enhance patient safety.
Dr Mahaiman Abdul Ghani, Executive Director of Al Zahra Hospital, noted that the new mechanism was adopted to avoid medical errors that are more common in hospitals.
“A recent study showed that approximately ive per cent of patients in US hospitals are at risk of a medical error (at least once) during hospital stay, such as different dosage of medication or dose of prescribed medication, complications or drug interactions with other drugs or non-drug use. The study concluded that the most effective way to avoid such errors is to rely on closed electronic systems to manage drugs and reduce dependence on the human element, especially in determining the dosage of drugs and alerting to the possibility of duplication or conlict the pharmacological effect of different drugs and to ensure that patients take doses and prescribed medicines at their specified time.”
Giving more details about the new advanced smart system, Dr Abdul Ghani explained that the new system identifies the patient electronically by scanning the patient’s data barcodes.
“The smart system automatically opens the patient’s electronic medical record and scans the barcode of each drug separately. The nurse signs electronically in the system and makes sure to give the correct medicine. The application of this system has many benefits, including reducing the percentage of errors in medicine and saves time and effort in writing patient data and prescriptions and transfer all this to the patient’s electronic record, which ensures the safety of satisfactory and the transfer of information in an effective and integrated between the medical staff members. We are striving in offering the best medical services to patients in the region and in implementation of the dubai health authority (DHA) in providing a secure therapeutic environment for citizens, residents and visitors to the emirate.”
Mona Salem, head of the pharmacy, indicated that the new system starts from the electronic registration of the prescription by the doctor, then is electronically reviewed and disposed of by the competent pharmacist and then comes the electronic registration of the process of giving the drug by the nurses with full electronic support to identify the prescribed drugs.
“This advanced therapeutic approach integrates several intelligent drug management systems in order to support the eficiency of utilisation of the drug and to ensure the provision of the patient with optimal treatment in a timely manner and in the period prescribed from the description of the drug.”