Thursday 28 March
13:15 – 14:30

Part A: Optimising Medications: Two Perspectives

Medications are often misused resulting in poorer quality of life, higher rate of adverse events, hospitalisation and increased costs. Participants will learn of two approaches to optimising a patient’s medications to meet the patient’s expectations, minimise harm and work towards positive outcomes. The session will include a financial analysis of costs saved through one of the programs.

After this session, participants will be able to:

1. Identify the patients who are most likely to benefit from a medication optimization effort
2. Learn the different steps needed to optimize medications
3. Identify measures that will help determine the success of the efforts from the healthcare and patient perspectives

Frank Federico , Vice President Senior Safety Expert, Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); USA

Part B: Raising the bar: Overcoming persistent challenges through stakeholder engagement

Achieving reliable medicines reconciliation has been a persistent challenge for most of Scotland for years. In this session, delegates will hear how SPSP Medicines has recently engaged with stakeholders in order to co-design further improvements, including in the newer workstreams of high-risk medicines, and missed doses. Throughout the session delegates will be also asked to describe their own persistent challenges, and discuss and develop ideas for harnessing user input in developing their own improvements.

After this session, participants will be able to:

1. Understand factors that influence engagement in safety activities
2. Learn about the strengths and weaknesses of some strategies for engaging stakeholders
3. Develop new ideas for overcoming persistent challenges in their own safety activities

Aravindan Veiraiah, National Clinical Lead, Improvement Hub, Healthcare Improvement Scotland; Scotland

Part C: How a simple communication tool reduces medication errors for people with disabilities

A new communication tool has been introduced in a Norwegian residential facility for adults with disabilities. A simple but successful measure that has significantly reduced medication errors. It is a board that registers medication errors and provides a system for informing of changes in daily care and routine. Implementation of this tool has led to improved procedures concerning medication handling and improved communication exchange between users, staff and relatives.

After this session, participants will be able to:

1. Recognise and implement a tool for reducing medical errors
2. Recognise how visualisation can contribute to achieving goals and carry projects into action
3. Recognise how the tool can be adapted and implemented in a variety of different healthcare settings

Liv Finne Nybø, Department manager, Health care sector in Voss municipality; Norway