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Notation of allergies and body weight on patient profiles
Insights
Implementing an allergy/weight imprinting card significantly improved the documentation of critical patient data on pharmacy profiles. This enhances medication safety for pediatric patients by ensuring accurate dosage evaluation.
Area of Science:
- Health Informatics
- Pediatric Pharmacy Practice
- Patient Safety
Background:
- Incomplete allergy and body weight documentation on pediatric patient medication profiles poses a risk to safe medication administration.
- Pharmacist evaluation of medication dosages requires accurate patient-specific data, including allergies and weight.
Purpose of the Study:
- To enhance the completeness of allergy and body weight information recorded on pharmacy medication profile cards for pediatric patients.
- To improve the ability of pharmacists to accurately assess and verify medication dosages.
Main Methods:
- A multi-phase study involving a control period, an intervention period utilizing an allergy/weight imprinting card and follow-up calls, and a post-study period.
- Physicians and nurses were prompted to document allergy and weight information on imprinting cards attached to physician's order sheets.
- Inservice education and phone calls were employed to support the intervention.
Main Results:
- Documentation of allergies increased from 33% in the control period to 80% during the study period.
- Documentation of body weight increased from 28% in the control period to 76% during the study period.
- Post-study, documentation rates decreased but remained higher than baseline (47% allergies, 46% weight).
Conclusions:
- The use of an allergy/weight imprinting card is an effective strategy to improve the documentation of essential patient data on pharmacy profiles.
- Enhanced data completeness facilitates pharmacist review, contributing to safer medication dispensing for pediatric patients.
Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to increase the documentation of allergy and body weight information on pharmacy medication profile cards for pediatric patients. The intent was to facilitate pharmacist evaluation of medication dosages ordered for these patients. A plastic allergy/weight imprinting card was supplied to each nursing unit and was used to imprint all admitting physician's order sheets. Allergy and weight information was to be filled in by the physician and/or nurse before routing a copy of these orders to the satellite pharmacy. Inservice education was presented and follow-up phone calls were made. During an 18-day control period, baseline data on documentation of allergies and weight were collected. During an 18-day study period, the allergy/weight card was used and follow-up phone calls were made. During an 18-day post-study period, the card and phone calls were removed. Percent of profiles having allergies and weight were, respectively: control period, 33 percent and 28 percent; study period, 80 percent and 76 percent; post-study period, 47 percent and 46 percent. Imprinting "allergy/weight" with space for filling in this information can result in an increased number of pharmacy patient profiles having these data so that medications can be checked prior to dispensing the first dosages of medication.