Russells Hall Hospital

Transcription

Discharging a patient from hospital can sometimes take hours longer than necessary all too often they're waiting for busy ward staff to take a trip to the pharmacy to collect their medication "Medicines management is really the art and science of getting a tablet from a wholesalers into a patient and as Head of Pharmacy, my responsibility is to all the patients that we see here, is trying to get that as safe as we can." As part of that process, all patients should ideally visit the pharmacist but using some new technology, the pharmacy at Russells Hall Hospital in Dudley, can now visit every patient "This is actually a mobile pharmacy, its got everything on it the computer system has that we've got in the dispensary so we can dispense prescriptions down on the ward We've got a printer here, we've got some drugs that we keep on with us, so that if we get any prescriptions for patients we can do it here. We can get the prescriptions straight away, it hasn't got to wait for a nurse to go down to pharmacy the chart doesn't have to leave the ward, we do it here and it's done for the patients." "Just like that, that's why it's good having these, you can do it straight away." "What do you call them?" "They're called a C.O.W Cart on Wheels, I love it, its great Five of these carts on wheels circulate through the hospital every day and if a patients prescription changes while they're out on the ward, they're automatically updated using wireless technology "We've used technology to take the systems and processes you see in the dispensary here which is clinically checking if the drug is right for the patient, assembling the medicines so the label is right, the drugs are right and the boxes are right, and then checking that's all correct is moving that up onto the ward so we've invested a little in that and certainly benefited not just from the care of the patients but also having our pharmacy staff closer to the nurses and doctors and the patients, I think its helped everybody "Hello Rita, I'm from the pharmacy department, I'm just looking at your medicine chart for you I see the doctors already got your regular medicines down did you bring any into hospital with you?" "Yes" The system can take into account existing medication the patient might have brought with them "We do like to use the patient's existing medication if we can because they're used to the brand the chemists give them so thats nice, they're familiar with them and of course it does help on the cost issue as well because we haven't got to supply them with anything This is like a patients history, this is actually what they take." Using the hospital's WiFi network, Tina can update the pharmacy's computer with the patients own drugs so when Rita is discharged a fresh supply will be automatically brought to her bedside in one of these carts "It's much better for the patients because we can get all the work done for them, they can go home quicker so its a better service."