News
University Hospitals Birmingham deploys 300 MCAs to help reduce
medication errors
18 February 2010
The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust
(UHBFT) has deployed more than 300 Motion C5 mobile clinical assistants
(MCA) to help reduce medication errors, enhance the quality of data
gathered at the bedside and improve the overall quality of patient care.
Used with its Prescribing Information Communication System (PICS),
the C5s are helping the hospital to avoid between 400 and 450 potential
medication errors each week. The Trust expects to save approximately 10%
of the drug budget due to more accurate prescribing and medication
administration.
“We deployed the Motion C5s with PICS to improve patient safety and
to reduce errors by allowing the computer system to guide staff at the
point of delivery of care,” said David Rosser, Executive Medical
Director, UHBFT. “We can also now analyse in great detail any potential
areas that can lead to errors and continuously improve the system to
even further reduce medication errors.”
The Motion C5 is the industry’s first mobile clinical assistant.
Developed in collaboration with Intel and the NHS, it is designed
specifically for healthcare environments. It has a 'rugged' design and
includes an integrated barcode scanner, RFID reader, digital camera and
smartcard reader to ease clinician workloads, improve productivity and
enhance patient care. At only 1.3kg and sealed for easy disinfection,
the device is easily used at the patient’s bedside and throughout the
hospital.
“The C5 is far better than other devices we have used. It is rugged
with a handle so it doesn’t get dropped as often as other devices, but
if it does it is still protected against breaking, so we are seeing a
significant decrease in help desk calls due to improved reliability,”
said Ian Clarke, the Head of Wolfson Computer Labs. “Additionally, since
it’s a Windows-based device, integrating it with our PICS systems was
incredibly simple.”
Benefits
UHBFT is realising significant benefits based on the deployment of
the Motion C5. Clinicians can easily take the lightweight devices to the
bedside, document drug histories and change prescriptions, all with the
flexibility to move around the hospital with continued access to
clinical records.
Eprescribing directly at the patient’s bedside is improving the
legibility of drug orders, reducing the duplication of drug charts and
most importantly, helping clinicians ensure that the right drug is given
to the right patient at the right time — all based on more accurate and
up-to-date patient records. Going forward, the team plans to even
further reduce medication errors by using the C5’s integrated barcode
scanner for patient identification.
“We can use the barcode scanner to identify patients before drugs are
administrated,” added Rosser. “This is a critical next step since 40
percent of medication errors in hospitals are related to giving the
drugs, not prescribing the drugs.
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