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Technology supporting resident safety
From cumbersome to safe and
streamlined
Webstercare’s RxMedChart system continues
to generate improved safety and efficiencies for
residential aged care facilities.
Baptist Care Morven Gardens Residential
Manager Kathryn Mussing explains, “The system
we were using previously was cumbersome
and difficult for all medication trained staff to
follow, including the RNs”.
This all changed when the facility turned to
Webstercare’s RxMedChart computer generated
system.
“Medication safety has improved enormously.
We have gone from an unacceptable number
– both packing and administration errors – to
virtually zero now,” said Ms Mussing.
“The do-not-crush alerts on the charts and
the Unit Dose 7 packs are important. Our
previous system did not have this capability.
The image of the pills and their colours on the
medication charts and packs are a great safety
awareness. There are less signing omissions, as
the charts are so much easier to read now.
Ms Mussing identified a number of concerns
they had with their previous system.
“Staff had difficulty reading the doctors’ writing
with the previous system. They had difficulty
flipping over several pages to find the nonpacked
medications, as these weren’t identified like they
are on the RxMedChart. The stop dates weren’t
clear and the doctors hated having to rewrite all of
their medication orders every our months.”
It has also led to improved communication
T 1800 244 358 I webstercare.com.au
with staff, the pharmacy and doctors. “It has
saved time for us. It has made communication
more streamlined and faster all round. The
doctors love the system compared to the old
system we used,” said Ms Mussing.
“This system drastically reduced
the risk of medication incidents,
improved time management,
streamlined ordering process,
bolstered our communication
and monitoring process, and has
given great confidence to staff.”
“The staff love the new system and now find
it so much easier to do medication rounds. They
feel more confident to be medication trained and
attend medication rounds,” said Ms Mussing.
Ready to go paperless?
The MedSig eSigning system was implemented by
Ardrossan Community Hospital early November
2017 following an investigation of what systems
were available to alleviate staff stress and reduce
the risk of harmful medication incidents.
“We are extremely lucky with our local
doctors. But everyone knows that doctors’
handwriting can be very difficult to read.
This was a recurrent challenge, especially
in relation to clarifying what the correct
medication was to be administered”, said Jodie
Luke, Executive Officer/Director of Nursing.
“So we needed to improve our medication
systems and decrease the amount of time and
associated stress endured by staff to complete
a medication round.”
The implementation ran smoothly, with
Webstercare supporting the process before,
during and after implementing MedSig.
“Webstercare staff attended our hospital
in November and trained all staff. Even those
who felt challenged about using the tablet were
impressed with how easy it was,” she said.
Once up and running, Ms Luke found that
their new MedSig Electronic Signing system did
far more than significantly speed up medication
delivery.
She noted that by communicating directly
with the pharmacy via a secure data centre, the
system updated medication details with new
levels of efficiency, simplicity, speed and security.
“It flags if a patient hasn’t been given their
medications and rounds cannot be completed
without all medications being signed or
accounted for”, she said.