The Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital (RVEEH) is the first hospital in Australia to implement a new medicine safety initiative designed to reduce medicine-related mishaps.
Known as the Pharmacist Shared Medicines List (PSML), it contains information about the medicines a patient was known to be taking at the time the list was created. This includes prescription and non-prescription medicines (such as paracetamol), and over-the-counter and complementary medicines, including vitamins and herbal remedies.
It also includes the health practitioner’s reasons for prescribing each medicine and how and when patients should take them.
According to Australian research, an estimated 250,000 hospital admissions are medicine-related and two-thirds are potentially preventable.
It is anticipated the PSML – which is a clinical document produced only by pharmacists and uploaded to My Health Record – will help patients and healthcare providers avoid medicine-related mishaps and ensure continuity of care throughout a patient’s healthcare journey, including when they are discharged from hospital and go home or into a residential aged care facility.
The Australian Digital Health Agency and the Victorian Department of Health worked closely with the RVEEH to implement the PSML at the hospital.
Director of Pharmacy at RVEEH, Ms Catherine Rokahr, explained that pharmacists highlight changes to a patient’s regular medicines made during a hospital stay.
“This is detailed in the discharge medicines’ list uploaded to My Health Record which becomes part of the PSML and shows GPs and community pharmacists any medicines that have been stopped, directions and doses that have changed, new prescriptions, and the reasons for each medicine use and medication changes,” she said.
Interest in adopting the medicine safety initiative across the state’s health system is gathering momentum.
“The Victorian Department of Health and the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital are to be commended for their support for the Pharmacist Shared Medicines List initiative,” the Australian Digital Health Agency CEO, Ms Amanda Cattermole, said.
“Now this Victorian hospital has led the way in implementing this initiative, the Agency and the Department are working to extend PSML to other health services in Victoria.”
Chief Digital Health Officer at the Victorian Department of Health, Mr Neville Board, said Victoria’s digital health roadmap centred on the secure sharing of critical health information between clinical settings, making each patient’s care journey safer.
“I thank all the staff at the Eye and Ear for taking the lead and getting essential patient medicines information into My Health Record” Board said.
More reading
New national standard for labelling dispensed medicines
Brand names banished under new prescribing regulations
