CME: Successful Strategies for Addressing Medication Safety Hot Topics - Oncology - ACPE

ACCREDITATION EXPIRED: April 01, 2015

Activity Description / Statement of Need:

In an effort to improve health care quality by fostering collaboration, a consortium of Medication Safety Officers from ASMSO have agreed to work together to enhance the knowledge of, and leading to a reduction in medication administration errors and readmission rates in acute care hospitals.

Why have those particular patient populations been singled out as worthy of attention?  The literature suggests that, in each case, they continue to be high risk; errors are more frequent and the potential for catastrophic consequence is higher in these patient populations relative to the general adult population:

• In oncology, roughly five percent of errors involve patient receiving the wrong chemotherapy, a grave concern given the agents’ often cytotoxic nature and narrow therapeutic index.  Moreover, a large survey of hospitals found that fewer than two out of three recommendations made by the World Health Organization for safe use with one particular agent, vincristine, had been implemented or followed.
• In the case of pediatrics, error rates occur at up to three times the rate of adult patient populations, a majority were incurred in medications associated with high acuity of care (e.g., antibiotics, intravenous routes of delivery), and nearly one in five is considered to represent the distinct potential for harm.
• The Beers Criteria for potentially inappropriate medication use in older adults was updated recently (2012), and healthcare providers as a whole are not likely aware of changes since the previous update (in 2003).

Taken together, these observations from the literature and recent guideline updates suggest that gaps in practice exist in these patient populations – gaps that the proposed learning activities will attempt to bridge.

In this online free CME / CE program , the presentations will be conducted using a case study format identifying areas of safety that have been successful based upon each of the practice areas noted.  These presentations will achieve objectives including; Identify factors of the patient population that increase the risk for medication errors, discuss risk reduction strategies for the particular patient population that can be applied to the medication-use process, completing, development of a list of root causes of medication administration errors, determining the economic cost to the system of these errors, development of data collection protocols, and an effort in the participating hospitals to utilize this information to reduce medication administration errors at their facilities.

Agenda:

• Introduction, Disclosures
• The oncology population through the prism of medication safety
• •           Impact and role of medical errors
• •           Existing barriers in the safe delivery of care
• •           The most frequent and highest impact medical errors
• •           Case study
• •           Improving adherence to therapy
• •           When errors occur: preparing in advance for management
• •           Case study: genitourinary cancer
• Best practices in lowering medical errors in oncology and case study
• Improving reporting rates of actual errors and near-misses in oncology and case study
• Putting it all together: best practices, summary, and conclusions

Target Audience:

Healthcare professionals, including oncologists, and other physicians, pharmacists, and mid-level practitioners working in acute care hospitals and other healthcare settings.

Commercial Support Disclosure: This program is supported by  educational grants from Boehringer Ingelheim and Hospira.

Release Date: March 03, 2013 -- Expiration Date: April 01, 2015

Faculty: Karen Smethers, PharmD, BCOP

Agenda

Learning Objectives

Accreditation

Faculty Disclosure and Resolution of COI

Instructions

System Requirements