How to improve medication-related patient safety in emergency departments

Need for pharmacists

Lisbeth Damlien Nymoen emphasises that there is a strong need for pharmacists in the emergency department. She continues, ‘We should put a lot of effort into medication reconciliation. Both on the way in and out of hospital.'

Recording

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More information

‘In a study we conducted in 2014, we found that as many as 62 per cent of the medication lists documented in the emergency department contained errors that were clinically relevant,’ says Lisbeth D Nymoen. To try to find out why, Nymoen has carried out a study of the time doctors spend on drug-related tasks in the emergency department. She found that an average of 7.8 minutes per patient is spent collecting and documenting information about the patient's drug use. Nymoen also found that almost 20 per cent of admissions to the emergency department are medication-related, and one in six of these is due to incorrect use of medication.

Nymoen believes that there may be a need for more clinical pharmacists in emergency departments who are dedicated to collecting, documenting and assessing patients' medication lists. This can help prevent errors in the medication lists, as well as identifying drug-related hospitalisations early in the course of treatment, thereby increasing patient safety in the emergency department.

Presentation by Lisbeth Damlien Nymoen, clinical pharmacist and doctoral student at Diakonhjemmet Hospital Pharmacy and the Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo.