The safe, effective and rational use of medicines at Sunnm0re Hospital Trust

摘要

Sunnm0re Hospital Trust (Volda and Alesund hospitals) is located in the south-western part of Norway and provides health care to inhabitants of the Sunn-m0re district. Both physical and mental healthcare services are provided to a population of about 130,000 people in this region. A multidisciplinary approach has recently been introduced, focusing on medicines reconciliation, to improve the use of medicines in the trust. Sunnm0re Hospital Trust focuses on improving patient safety, and the aim of a current project is to improve the safe, effective and rational use of medicines. It is well known that medication errors commonly originate from the process of transferring information between hospital and primary health care. A study performed on three different medical wards in Alesund and Trondheim showed discrepancies in medicines history and related these to different sources of medicines information at time of admission for more than 80% of the patients [1]. Medicines reconciliation on patient entry to, and exit from, hospital has the potential to reduce the risk of medicines errors.