Earlier this summer four members of the Ontario College of Pharmacy met and interviewed Providence Care’s pharmacy team and nursing staff. They also toured departments and gave an oral report to the team as part of a required accreditation process.
Here are five ways Rene Thibault , RPh, Professional Practice Leader of Pharmacy said Providence Care benefitted from the OCP visit:
- It helps make Providence Care’s Pharmacy better: “It’s about an opportunity for quality improvement, guided by professional standards and best practices.”
- Simple suggestions go a long way: Injections had been stored together and the advisors suggested they separate the long-acting depot injections, “That was a five-minute fix, yet it was a patient safety improvement just by having the advisor look at our shelves.”
- Critical feedback is beneficial quality improvement: “It required us to critically examine every one of our pharmacy procedures, policies and process … and also our relationship with other disciplines in the hospitals as it applies to medication management.”
- It helped highlight room for improvement: “Because of the assessment, we were able to identify that we need to do work on our organizational procedures.”
- It was beneficial to the development of the new hospital: “When we move, we’ll have a new drug distribution system. Having OCP assessment criteria available, we can us that as a framework to develop policies and procedures, to support and maybe even influence decisions we’re making.”
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