A Quality Improvement Initiative to Improve Pediatric Discharge Medication Safety and Efficiency

Area of Science:

• Patient Safety
• Health Informatics
• Quality Improvement in Healthcare

Background:

• Medication errors pose a significant safety risk, particularly for patients with limited health literacy or complex medication regimens.
• Effective discharge medication management is crucial for patient safety and continuity of care.
• Multilingual electronic platforms can address disparities in healthcare communication and understanding.

Purpose of the Study:

• To increase the utilization of an integrated electronic discharge medication platform (MedActionPlanPro - MAP) within the electronic health record (EHR).
• To improve medication reconciliation safety and provider efficiency for pediatric patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery or blood and marrow transplant.
• To achieve 80% utilization of the MAP platform by July 2021.

Main Methods:

• A quality improvement project implemented MAP integration into the EHR on pediatric inpatient units and outpatient clinics.
• An interdisciplinary team developed and executed interventions, tracking outcomes via statistical process control charts.
• The project spanned August 2020 to July 2021, with MAP go-live on February 1, 2021.

Main Results:

• MAP utilization in the EHR increased from 0% to 73% post-implementation.
• Average user hours per patient decreased by 70% (from 0.89 to 0.27 hours).
• Medication matching accuracy between inpatient and discharge records improved by 25.6% (P < 0.001).

Conclusions:

• Integration of MAP into the EHR significantly enhanced inpatient discharge medication reconciliation safety.
• The implementation led to improved provider efficiency in managing patient medications.
• This quality improvement initiative demonstrates the value of electronic, multilingual tools in reducing medication errors.