Applying SHERPA to Analyze Medication Administration in theCardiac Telemetry Unit

摘要

Medication administration is one of the most important and complex processes touching almost every patient thatcomes into the hospital. Consisting of five stages, namely prescribing, documenting, dispensing or preparation,administering and monitoring, the process is highly dependent on the effective and efficient interactions of healthprofessionals from different disciplines. Previous research indicated the benefits of applying human factors to studymedication errors and highlighted the need for healthcare providers to be more aware of human limitations and thatsystem changes should be made to accommodate them. The Systematic Human Error Reduction and PredictionApproach (SHERPA), which is based on human errors taxonomy, analyzes tasks and identifies potential solutions toerrors in a structured manner. The application of SHERPA for analyzing drug administration will be especiallybeneficial for hospital decision makers as they plan to integrate various technologies to improve this process.Therefore, this paper illustrates the application of SHERPA to the process of administering drugs to patients of thecardiac telemetry unit at Virtua Health, a multi-hospital healthcare system headquartered in Marlton, NJ, particularlyas a means for preventing (or reducing) errors and comparing alternative administration technologies.