The Audit Commission’s 2001 review of medicines management in hospitals set out a vision of the use of information technology (IT) in hospital pharmacy that largely remains unchanged today.
Information
technology
The Audit
Commission’s 2001 review of medicines management in hospitals set out a vision
of the use of information technology (IT) in hospital pharmacy that largely
remains unchanged today. It stated that:
New medication is agreed between members of the clinical
team and ordered at the bedside through a radio-computer link to an automated
dispensary, where robotic systems pick the new medicines and dispatch them to
the patient’s ward via a pneumatic tube.
Ten years later,
this vision remains a long way off for many, though in a small number of
hospitals it is tantalisingly close to full implementation, yet after 10 years
still not there. This chapter will examine the developments in IT as they apply
to hospital pharmacy practice and how the vision set out has been modified in
some areas, as the national programme for IT has evolved and pharmacy practice
moved on. It will describe the main developments in IT relating to hospital
pharmacy, the use of stock control systems, electronic prescribing and
medicines administration and electronic patient records (EPRs).
The definition that
is assumed for e-prescribing is that utilised by NHS Connecting for Health,
namely:
the utilisation of electronic systems to facilitate and
enhance the communication of a prescription or medicine order, aiding the
choice, administration and supply of a medicine through knowledge and decision
support and providing a robust audit trail for the entire medicines use
process.
Related Topics
TH 2019 - 2025 pharmacy180.com; Developed by Therithal info.