Quality improvement is a team effort. The most effective quality interventions happen with team communication, collaboration and commitment to patient safety. The UF Health Jacksonville Medication Safety Team understands the importance of this type of teamwork among departments when identifying and implementing new medication-safety initiatives.

Over the past several years, the Medication Safety Team has been using technology as a quality improvement tool throughout the hospital. Barcoding technology involves a handheld scanner that identifies the patient and the medication using the patient armband and the medication-barcoded label, respectively. Pharmacy, Information Technology Services and Nursing have added barcode technology to the patient bedside. This has improved the safety and accuracy of medication dispensing, especially with sound-alike and look-alike medications.

To further improve patient safety, the team added automated medication-dispensing cabinets and smart IV pump technology. Each has detection and prevention features to help the nurse dispense medications more effectively and safely.

The team has worked with ITS to develop alerts and warnings in Epic based on best-practice safety recommendations. A close partnership between ambulatory pharmacy and ITS resulted in changes in Epic for prescriptions. Many medications have multiple ordering options. The team created directions and information to help providers pick the most appropriate medications. These directions auto-populate when the provider is writing the prescription. This helps detect and prevent medication errors at the time the prescription is written, rather than discovering the error when the medication is being filled at the pharmacy.

The Medication Safety Team is working with other hospital departments to improve the monitoring of high-risk medications such as heparin and insulin. The Rapid Response Team proactively rounds to monitor the use of these medications. The Medication Safety Team’s bimonthly meetings are used to facilitate discussions regarding identified errors that have occurred and to strategize, across disciplines, ways to prevent these errors and improve overall patient safety.

Because of its innovative work to improve the health and well-being of our patients, the Medication Safety Team received the Florida Society of Health System Pharmacists’ Medication Safety Award for its outstanding commitment to safety and quality improvement at UF Health Jacksonville.