Devising of a risk map on the management of high risk alert medication in a high level university hospital.

Objective: To classify hospital units into three risk levels in order to define and prioritise  improvement and training measures in each of them.

Method: The risk map was developed in two phases: First phase involved the setting up of a  multidisciplinary team, a bibliographic search, the identification of medications and of the criteria to  design the map: (1) Location: number of high-alert medications; (2) Staff turnover: the units were  classified in low turnover units = 1, medium turnover units = 2 and high turnover units = 3 according  to data provided by the human resource department; (3) Frequency: quotient between the number of high alert medicactions in each unit and the total of medications used, and (4) Severity: voluntary  survey of professionals. An accumulated risk of severity of each unit was calculated: Σ (severity of the  drug x number of its units).