Horus meets Nightingale in the modern age: How nursing communicates with pharmacy in HCIT era

In 2002 The Australia council for Safety and Quality in Healthcare determined that problems with medicines were responsible 2-3% of all hospital admissions in Australia EMR's with codified datasets lay the foundation for significantly reducing the number of these adverse events. CPOE has well documented benefits in the reduction of order related errors. The use of information technology in pharmacy has long provided proven benefits in the diminution of pharmacy errors. The use of an electronic medication chart and positive patient identification functionality and technology (5 rights) ensures a reduction in errors at administration. Decision support at all stages of an electronic medication process reduces errors and promotes evidence based medicine. This functionality all provides a basis for addressing medication errors, however it is the seamless integration of all these components into a homogenous system that really addresses these errors. This research focuses on the communication gap between pharmacy and nursing. It is a multi-disciplinary study that defines that lack of research in this are and proposes the important questions that need to be answered in order to ensure that HCIT advancement in this area is focussed to eliminate medication errors.