(NQF) has revised its list of practices that have proven effective in reducing adverse events - Pharmacy Informatics perspective

The National Quality Forum (NQF) has revised its list of practices that have proven effective in reducing adverse events.  This is a very impressive list of practices.  It also revealing what is not on the list.

From a pure pharmacy informatics perspective the following practices are good to see.  CPOE and Pharmacy leadership are, of course, welcome additions to this list.  Using technology to enhance medication reconciliation and antimicrobial stewardship will go a long way to enhancing care as well and need a full court press by pharmacy and informatic departments.

Bar Code Medication Administration (BCMA) is not on the list.  This is not a big surprise.  I have settled into a role and view of a counter balance to most of my pharmacy colleagues.  There is a wide effort to implement BCMA to decrease adverse events without much evidence that it does anything.   Spouting a negative view on this practice is not comfortable nor one that I believe will last forever.  I fully believe that this practice will eventually be proven effective.  At this time it clearly is not.  Given this list of these proven practices, spending time and effort on BCMA if all of these practices are not fully exploted, may even be harmful.  We all have limited resources and time taken away from proven practices to ones of dubious value needs to be evaluated.

What say you?

John Poikonen
john@poikonen.NET
http://twitter.com/poikonen
Blog = http://pharmacyinformatics.wordpress.com/

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