What the doctor ordered

5 Nov 2021

Giving medicine is the most common intervention done within our hospitals – on wards and in theatres – every day, so getting it right each and every time is critical.

By investing in an automated medication system, BD Pyxis, manual processes and record keeping will be reduced, which in turn will reduce the risk of error.

The system is initially being introduced in theatres at St John of God Health Care’s WA hospitals in the first instance, with the intention of rolling out to VIC and NSW hospitals in the near future.  A trial of the system at St John of God Bunbury Hospital has also been included in the first phase of the approved rollout.

St John of God Health Care Clinical Outcomes Coordinator Tammy Sandison said automating the dispensing of medication at the point of care was a critical opportunity to reduce risk.

“Automating this moment in a patient’s care helps to ensure the exact medication dose, strength and formula is given at the right time to the right patient,” she said.

“Currently this is a manual process which, while extremely rare, means there is a chance of error occurring and the record keeping involved is time consuming.

“So not only will this reduce the risk of human error, it will also reduce the administration load on nurses so they can instead spend that time caring for patients at the bedside.”

Tammy said this technology is becoming more widely used in theatres across the country and is the first step in St John of God Health Care hospitals looking to innovative solutions to electronically manage medications.

“We all know that health care has become more complex as our knowledge grows and personalised care becomes more commonplace,” she said.

“Investing in the right tools and resources, as well as processes and policies, will support our nurses and doctors to provide consistently high quality, safe clinical care.

“As we go forward, we will look at what an electronic medication management roadmap could look like and investigate opportunities to automate other processes around medication storage, secure access and e-registers.”