The third WHO Global Patient Safety Challenge is Medication Without Harm. It aims to reduce severe avoidable medication-related harm by 50% globally in the next 5 years. But, how will healthcare organizations know whether their improvement efforts have been effective in contributing toward this goal? Many healthcare organizations  struggle to undertake routine medication safety measurement and surveillance, if at all. Most organizations still rely on voluntarily reported incident reporting to monitor the state of medication safety despite its well known limitations. 

In this presentation, presenter will provide a brief overview of contemporary medication safety measurement and monitoring research. Using an organizational case study from Waitemata District Health Board as an illustrative example, we will consider how medication safety can be practically, sustainably and routinely measured for the purpose of monitoring progress and informing further improvement.  

Key Takeaways: 

1) Get insights on a how medication safety is being measured at Waitemata District Health Board

2) Obtain ways to make better use of existing and routinely collected data 

3) Learn how the development process is more important than the output

Speaker:

Jerome Ng, Clinical Director of Healthcare Quality, Bay of Plenty District Health Board (DHB); Lead Advisor, Waitemata DHB;  Honorary Lecturer, School of Population Health and School of Pharmacy, University of Auckland, Aukland, New Zealand.

Jerome Ng is skilled in patient safety improvement, informatics and clinical governance. He serves on two national pharmacy boards. He was appointed the New Zealand’s Pharmacist of the Year and HealthRoundTable Innovation Fellow. As a strategic systems thinker, Jerome is passionate about improving patient health outcomes and experience through intelligent information use.