MGH: Among the Nation's Best - Marion General Hospital

By Randy DeffenbaughEnsuring YourSafetyIt’s a sound investment at MGHIs there really such a thing as a sound investment today? We think so. We believeyour safety is a sound investment. Over the past several years, Marion GeneralHospital has invested an astounding $2.5 million in a variety of processes,equipment and education to help ensure patient safety. Here are a few examples.Medication ReconciliationMedication reconciliation is a process that tracks your homemedications at the time of your hospital admission, transferand discharge to prevent medication errors and omissions.Errors of duplicate therapy and incorrect doses also can beidentified more quickly and corrected.Additionally, nursing staff and physicians have accessto your accurate list of home medications throughout yourentire hospital stay.Bedside Medication VerificationBedside medication verification, or BMV, allowsnurses to use bar-code scanning technology to confirmyour identity and medication information prior to youreceiving medication.The BMV philosophy includes the five rights ofmedication administration:• Right patient• Right time• Right drug• Right dose•Right administration route (mouth, vein,injection, etc.)Bar-code scanning increases accuracy and efficiencyof medication administration and greatly reduces thechances for preventable medication errors.Pyxis Automated MedicationDispensing SystemThe Pyxis® CIISafe TM system in the pharmacyprovides a fully automated and exceptionallyaccurate system for securing, tracking andreplenishing supplies of patient medications.System advantages include:•It helps ensure availability of patient medicationwhen needed.•It virtually eliminates time-consuming anderror-prone manual record-keeping.•It allows for early detection of discrepancies tosupport patient safety.All nursing units and patient care areas havea Pyxis Medstation that works with the CIISafesystem to automate the distribution, management,control and charging of your medications.The station improves patient safety andquality of care because it dispenses the correctmedications directly to the nursing staff foreach patient.Nurses log on to the station, select yourname from a display, select your prescribedmedication and dose from your profile, andautomatically retrievethe correct medicationwhen it is unlockedfrom the assignedpocket in the assigneddrawer. The system virtuallyeliminates medicationerrors because itmaintains a computerizedtransaction historyand audit trail.50vim & vigor • fall 2009