Just What the Doctor Ordered
Leading to new levels of medication safety
Each year, an estimated 1.5 million Americans are affected by medication errors—a healthcare problem that can have serious, even fatal consequences. It’s a challenge that many healthcare organizations are working to overcome.
At MultiCare Health System’s four hospitals in southwest Washington state, improved medication safety is as close as the barcode on each patient’s wristband. A quick scan of the patient and medication barcodes link nursing staff to the patient’s medical chart and physician’s computer-entered pharmacy orders—with automatic alerts if the medication type, timing or dosage is incorrect.
Bedside barcoding is part of a larger, integrated medication safety program at MultiCare, a national leader in patient safety. MultiCare engaged Point B to lead this complex initiative, which included four interrelated projects with many diverse stakeholders, workflows and technology vendors. Together, the initiatives have transformed medication delivery across MultiCare’s 818-bed hospital system—from the physicians’ computerized order entry and pharmacy barcoding technology to storage closer to point of care and delivery at the patient’s bedside.
“The bedside barcoding system creates a closed-loop system that is critical to patient safety,” said Florence Chang, Senior Vice President, Clinical Support Services and CIO at MultiCare.
Leading to the right solution
To ensure that all stakeholders had a voice in defining requirements for the bedside barcoding solution, Point B brought together and led a cross-functional team including pharmacy, nursing, IT, facilities and process improvement. Point B led the team in evaluating RFPs, making site visits to see the systems in action and weighing diverse factors such as functionality, cost, performance, integration and impact on workflows.
The toughest challenge? Selecting the right solution when there were so many factors to consider, Chang said.
“Point B helped us to objectively weigh the pros and cons. It required a lot of analysis, fact-finding and guiding people to the right decision. Point B was able to use an objective methodology and leverage the ideas of our own nursing team to get to that decision. That was the most challenging moment. But it was also the best moment for the project.”
Rolling out a system-wide success
Once the technology was selected, Point B led vendor contract negotiations for the bedside barcode solution and orchestrated the rollout across MultiCare’s four hospitals.
“Point B understood the operating requirements and translated them into technical plans,” Chang said.
Point B began by developing a pilot implementation at Allenmore Hospital. The pilot included testing and working closely with the hospital’s leaders to plan workflow training for the pharmacy and nursing staff. Once the Allenmore pilot was complete, Point B led the system implementation across MultiCare’s other three hospitals.
At the same time, Point B managed the three related projects, which culminated in the launch of MultiCare’s new, end-to-end medication delivery system and the integration with the organization’s electronic medical record system.
Now at MultiCare, computerized physician order entry eliminates the errors inherent in handwritten prescriptions, getting accurate records directly into the patient’s medical record. Pharmacy automation ensures that every dose of medication has a readable barcode. Medication storage closer to the point of care on nursing units ensures quicker access to medication. And bedside barcodes validate the five "rights" of medication administration: the right patient, time, drug, dose and route.
Putting patient safety first
While the new system is in its early days, there is broad agreement across its stakeholder community that it is moving MultiCare in the right direction—and delivering on the organization’s “Better Connected” motto every day.
“This is a huge step forward on our journey to be leaders in patient safety,” said JoEllen Vanatta, Senior VP and Chief Nurse Executive at MultiCare.
"Point B is a collaborative and effective project leader, able to create synergy and excitement from diverse clinical groups and achieve excellent results,” said Mady Murrey, Vice President and Administrator, Mary Bridge Children's Hospital and Health Center. “Their understanding of customer needs, communication skills and 'can-do' attitude gave all team members a sense of confidence and trust in their ability to deliver on a key organizational project."
MultiCare’s integrated system has gained national recognition as one of the most automated healthcare organizations in the country. In 2009, MultiCare received the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Davies Organizational Award for Excellence for effectively using health information technology to improve the safety and quality of patient care.
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