Safer Health Care Now! And The Canadian Association of Paediatric Health Centres Paediatric Medication Reconciliation Collaborative

The Safer Healthcare Now! (SHN) campaign, since 2005, has offered Canadian healthcare organizations the opportunity to participate in and support a campaign dedicated to improving patient safety, through the implementation of six targeted interventions in patient care. Among the six SHN! Campaign interventions, the CAPHC Patient Safety Collaborative identified Medication Reconciliation as their national paediatric priority.  The CAPHC Paediatric Medication Reconciliation Collaborative, in collaboration with SHN! has provided support to paediatric healthcare centres and related organizations across Canada to facilitate implementation of medication reconciliation.

Medication reconciliation involves clearly and accurately documenting patient medication usage and reconciling discrepancies with medication orders. Ultimately the goal is to develop a process that provides an accurate record of a patient’s home medication history that can be used as the basis for medication orders as patients are admitted, transferred between units and discharged.

Since August 2005, 17 centres across Canada have established 23 paediatric MedRec teams.  Patient populations vary from children admitted to paediatric wards in community hospitals to complex populations including nephrology, mental health and respiratory medicine within acute care settings.  At a system-wide level the collaborative has made significant progress in implementing practice change and improving medication safety.

The collaborative model has provided and will continue to provide a very valuable forum for paediatric implementation teams across the country.  Beginning in November 2005, the collaborative held the first of seven interactive teleconferences.  These teleconferences were intended to offer an opportunity to provide updates and to provide a forum for collaborative members to share challenges, ideas and potential solutions.  The teams identified and shared their challenges and barriers to implementing MedRec.  As the process evolved the teams shared their strategies as well as tools that had been successful in moving the process forward.  CAPHC supported the work on a Paediatric MedRec Guidelines and Best Practices manuscript.  This document will serve as a final report (including the audit data up to Dec 2008) as well as creating a resource to provide support to sites that are just beginning to implement MedRec or sites that are experiencing significant challenges around implementing MedRec and/or meeting Accreditation Canada ROPs.

» Paediatric Medication Reconciliation Collaborative - Key Strategies and Essential Success Elements:
   The 3-Year Journey
» Medication Reconciliation Bringing Intervention to Practice

PMRC Teleconferences Summaries

Orientation and Training Workshop, August 9-10, 2005

» Executive Summary
» Workshop Program
» Final Workshop Proceedings

Workshop Presentations
» CAPHC Presentation (E. Orrbine)
» National Survey on Child and Youth Healthcare Safety (A. Matlow)
» ISMP Canada and the Canadian Getting Started Kit (M. Colquhoun)
» Safer Healthcare Now! Campaign (C. Hoffman)
» Healthcare Improvement (IHI) and the 100,000 Lives Campaign (J. Bohnen)
» Medication Reconciliation: Making a difference in the safety of Children (J. Morath)

Safer Health Care Now!

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