Applying the performance improvement team concept to the medication order process

Healthcare literature suggests that most adverse drug events (ADEs) are the results of errors at the prescribing stage. These ADEs affect patients, physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and hospital administrators. Improving systems and providing education, rather than tracking the performance of individual prescribers, seem to be more effective in preventing and reducing ADEs. Pharmacists' participation on patient medical rounds and their presence in a satellite pharmacy increased their accessibility and their ability to share pertinent clinical information and thereby improved the medication order process and, ultimately, patient care. The pharmacy and medicine departments at one hospital took a proactive multidisciplinary approach that resulted in streamlining the medication order process, decreasing delays in initiating drug therapy, preventing ADEs, enhancing the knowledge of healthcare professionals, meeting the needs and expectations of patients and providers, and employing cost-effective drug therapy.