Background: Surgical patients are at risk for preventable adverse drug events (ADEs) during hospitalization. Usually, preventable ADEs are measured as an outcome parameter of quality of pharmaceutical care. However, process measures such as QIs are more efficient to assess the quality of care and provide more information about potential quality improvements.

Objective: To assess the quality of pharmaceutical care of medication-related processes in surgical wards with quality indicators, in order to detect targets for quality improvements.

Methods: For this observational cohort study, quality indicators were composed, validated, tested, and applied on a surgical cohort. Three surgical wards of an academic hospital in the Netherlands (Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam) participated. Consecutive elective surgical patients with a hospital stay longer than 48 hours were included from April until June 2009. To assess the quality of pharmaceutical care, the set of quality indicators was applied to 252 medical records of surgical patients.

Results: Thirty-four quality indicators were composed and tested on acceptability and content- and face-validity. The selected 28 candidate quality indicators were tested for feasibility and 'sensitivity to change'. This resulted in a final set of 27 quality indicators, of which inter-rater agreements were calculated (kappa 0.92 for eligibility, 0.74 for pass-rate). The quality of pharmaceutical care was assessed in 252 surgical patients. Nearly half of the surgical patients passed the quality indicators for pharmaceutical care (overall pass rate 49.8%). Improvements should be predominantly targeted to medication care related processes in surgical patients with gastro-intestinal problems (domain pass rate 29.4%).

Conclusions: This quality indicator set can be used to measure quality of pharmaceutical care and detect targets for quality improvements. With these results medication safety in surgical patients can be enhanced.

Download full-text PDF

Source
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4090008PMC
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0101573PLOS

Publication Analysis

Top Keywords

pharmaceutical care
28
surgical patients
28
quality indicators
28
quality pharmaceutical
24
quality
18
assess quality
12
surgical
11
care
9
processes surgical
8
surgical wards
8

Similar Publications

A real-world pharmacovigilance analysis of potential ototoxicity associated with sacubitril/valsartan based on FDA Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS).

Sci Rep

December 2024

Department of Comprehensive Oncology, National Cancer Center/National Clinical Research Center for Cancer/Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing, 100021, China.

Sacubitril/valsartan, a first-in-class angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor, is widely used to treat heart failure. Despite its efficacy, sacubitril/valsartan inevitably causes adverse events such as hypotension, renal dysfunction, hyperkalemia, and angioedema. Sacubitril/valsartan-associated ototoxicity is often underreported in clinical studies and real-world settings.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Over 80% of biologic drugs, and 90% of vaccines, require temperature-controlled conditions throughout the supply chain to minimize thermal inactivation and contamination. This cold chain is costly, requires stringent oversight, and is impractical in remote environments. Here, we report chemical dispersants that non-covalently solvate proteins within fluorous liquids to alter their thermodynamic equilibrium and reduce conformational flexibility.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

In a series of studies on blood-brain barrier transportable peptides, a soybean dipeptide, Tyr-Pro, penetrated the mouse brain parenchyma after oral intake and improved short and long memory impairment in acute Alzheimer's model mice. Here, we aimed to clarify the anti-dementia effects of this peptide administered to SAMP8 mice prior to dementia onset. At the end of the 25-week protocol in 16-week-old SAMP8 mice, Tyr-Pro (10 mg/kg/day) significantly improved the reduced spatial learning ability compared with that in the control and amino acid (Tyr + Pro) groups as indicated by the results of Morris water maze tests conducted for five consecutive days.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Metaplastic breast cancer (MpBC) is a highly chemoresistant subtype of breast cancer with no standardized therapy options. A clinical study in anthracycline-refractory MpBC patients suggested that nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor NG-monomethyl-l-arginine (L-NMMA) may augment anti-tumor efficacy of taxane. We report that NOS blockade potentiated response of human MpBC cell lines and tumors to phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) inhibitor alpelisib and taxane.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Objectives: Nosocomial pneumonia caused by multidrug-resistant gram-negative bacteria presents a significant challenge for healthcare systems, as there are limited effective treatments available. This systematic review and meta-analysis aim to investigate the outcomes of colistin plus meropenem combination therapy on nosocomial pneumonia.

Materials And Methods: An exhaustive search of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science (WOS), and Embase databases was conducted, resulting in the extraction of 5 studies for qualitative assessment and meta-analysis.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Want AI Summaries of new PubMed Abstracts delivered to your In-box?

Enter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!