Hospital systems are extraordinarily complicated. And while the staff may be top notch, procedural errors and miscommunication can surface. In Jackson, Mississippi, the management at Baptist Health Systems made it a top priority to reduce patient medication errors. Patient safety has always been a strategic area of focus for Baptist, and its willingness to undergo broad strokes of change in its systems has resulted in tremendous success.
With the help of McKesson’s Clinical Consulting Group, Baptist resolved more than 230 process issues and automated 34 medication delivery procedures. It took a great deal of effort by everyone involved: 80 staff members assessed more than 4,000 medication orders and identified risk areas at each step, from prescribing to transcribing to dispensing to administering to monitoring. With the data in hand, McKesson provided a comprehensive medication safety solution. And, once implemented, McKesson’s automated technology and support systems returned outstanding results: a medication dispensing accuracy rate of 98%. The health system also recouped more than 25,000 nursing hours each year, saving the organization $937,000. Perhaps the most revealing statistic of all; more than 70% of Baptist’s nurses and pharmacists reported that the system has helped them avoid medication errors.
McKesson solutions enable hospitals to care for and treat patients with more time, more accuracy, stronger finances and more confidence. And while it’s true that medication errors are the most frequently occurring errors in hospitals, for every problem there is an opportunity. With McKesson at their side, hospitals nationwide have witnessed dramatic improvements in medication delivery accuracy. McKesson is proud to include Baptist Health Systems among its success stories.
The results of the businesses above depend on a variety of factors that are unique to each business. There is no guarantee that your results will be similar to their result. Each party’s results will depend on the factors of its business. The success of these businesses cannot be used as an indication of future success with these programs.