a. Communicating with the patient or patient’s representative
b. Staff meetings
a. Memorandum to staff and other health care professionals
b. Pharmacy newsletter
c. Institutional newsletter
X. Collecting and Analyzing Quality Data
A. Routine monitoring of the pharmacy department’s activities helps ensure the quality of pharmacy products and services, and serves to identify existing and potential problems. Monitoring and measuring a specific outcome or quality indicator is part of the continuous quality improvement process.
B. Examples of quality indicators used to monitor pharmacy quality improvement include:
- Sterile product testing
a. Evaluating processes used in the preparation and sterilization of products to ensure that sterile products are free from microbial contamination, particulate matter, and pyrogens. This assessment includes various tests.
- Packaging unit-dose medications
a. Evaluating accuracy and efficiency in the packaging process
- Medication errors
a. Tracking the number of errors over a period of time
- Drug distribution activities
a. Evaluating accuracy in filling and checking unit-dose medication carts
- Recordkeeping activities
a. Evaluating or reviewing patient profiles, medication administration records, and other records related to the above processes
- Inventory control
a. Evaluating changes in inventory costs
XI. Chapter Summary
Stay updated, free articles. Join our Telegram channel
Full access? Get Clinical Tree
