Pharmacists' Role In Medication Management Featured In NQF Webinar

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 17 Jun 2009 - 7:00 PDT

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The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) will highlight the critical role pharmacists play in ensuring the safety of the medication-use process in hospitals during a webinar hosted by the National Quality Forum (NQF) on June 18, 2009.

The webinar, Practices for Medication Safety, will feature healthcare experts who will offer an overview of and implementation strategies for the NQF's 2009 National Voluntary Consensus Standards for Safe Practices for Better Healthcare that are related to medication management - medication reconciliation and pharmacists leadership structures and systems. Mary Andrawis, Pharm.D., M.P.H, director of Clinical Guidelines and Quality Improvement, will be part of the faculty. Andrawis will offer perspectives on the importance of the medication management safe practices in hospital settings.

ASHP was instrumental in achieving recognition for Pharmacist Leadership Structures and Systems-Safe Practice 18-which acknowledges the importance of pharmacy leadership in ensuring the safety of medication use systems throughout health care facilities.

The 2009 Safe Practices describe practices that have been demonstrated to be effective in reducing the occurrence of adverse health events. The document includes many activities in which pharmacists play a significant role in improving the safety and quality of patient care, such as medication reconciliation, order read-back and abbreviations, safe adoption of CPOE, and anticoagulation therapy management.

The webinar is part of a year-long series addressing specific safe practices to guide the healthcare industry in more rapid adoption of safety measures. The webinars are co-hosted by the Texas Medical Institute of Technology. For more information on the webinar series, see http://www.qualityforum.org/safe_practices/index.asp#webinar.

Source
American Society of Health-System Pharmacists