Some of those attending the conference yesterday at the QEH on patient safety.
Patients are being urged to know their medication, the dosage they are taking and for what reason it has been prescribed.
So says pharmacist at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Trudy Griffith. Delivering a presentation yesterday morning on “Medication Error” at the Patient Safety Awareness Conference put on by the hospital’s Clinical Risk Management Unit, she made it clear that such information is pertinent and can mean the difference between life and death.
Griffith went on to say it is also vital that patients know how to pronounce the names of their medication or at least how to spell them. She added that they should have this information documented and keep it current, as it could be help if they need to be hospitalised, or should disaster of any kind strike.
Speaking to the media after her presentation, the pharmacist said that medication error is a huge concern for the health care facility, noting that in that setting a significant quantity of medication is prescribed, dispensed and used on a daily basis.
“There are patients who come in with acute medical conditions and therefore you have to use medications over and above what they would normally use. So if a person has diabetes and hypertension and comes in with a stroke, they may end up on more medication. Or a person comes in with a heart attack they may end up on more medication... Even though you would have had a rational medication regimen before you came into the hospital, now we are introducing additional medications while you are here and therefore we need to know what you were on from before,” she said.
She explained that this would allow the doctors to know what additional drugs they can safely prescribe and to make informed decisions about their care. Equally, she said this medication information would be vital should the person be diagnosed with a condition like the novel coronavirus, which is currently spreading across the world.
“If you have to be quarantined, which means you are going to have to be away from your normal setting, we have to have medication available for you. So we need to know what you are on so we can make those medications available for you while you are in quarantine, but if you can’t tell me what medications you are on, where does that leave us?” she said. (JRT)