Improving the process by which the progress of TTO medication can be tracked by staff on the wards at Cheltenham General Hospital

Quality Improvement Poster Download

Background & Problem

Nursing staff find it difficult to track the status of their patients’ TTO medication (as evidenced by my baseline data). Staff have to walk down or ring the dispensary. Both of which are time consuming.

Members of staff in the dispensary that are answering these phone calls are also carrying out dispensing activities. Interruptions are a well-documented cause of dispensing errors.

The current system is frustrating and hazardous for pharmacy staff who are interrupted and ward staff who spend valuable time on the phone to dispensary. It is also frustrating for patients who are waiting for their medicines.

Aim

25% reduction in the number of phone calls to dispensary asking if TTO medication is ready by the end of March 2019.

Method

• Access to pharmacy WebTracker was obtained for ward staff.
• Posters and How To Guides were distributed to all ward areas.
• Prompt cards with the login details were attached to computer screens
• The third cycle will involve dispensary staff refusing to give out information regarding the progress of TTO medication over the phone and refer the caller to WebTracker.

Results

After the first cycle, 45% of nursing staff interviewed stated that they found it easy or very easy to track the status of TTO medication. This was a dramatic improvement compared with my baseline data, before the introduction of WebTracker, where 75% of nursing staff reported it was hard or very hard.

Unfortunately there has been no significant change in the number of phone calls, or the number of near miss incidents at this stage.

Implications

I need to motivate more nursing colleagues to start using WebTracker and realise its benefits. I plan to target areas which are struggling to provide extra support and hope to include other members of staff, for example ward clerks.