Mercy Meds program increases patient safety

Medication error is becoming a worry of the past at St. Joseph’s Mercy Health Center in Hot Springs thanks to the Mercy Meds Program. This Sisters of Mercy Health System initiative was developed solely to improve patient safety after an Institute of Medicine report showed how many patient deaths resulted from medication error.

Mercy Meds strives to ensure the six "rights" of medication safety: the "right" dose of the "right" drug through the "right" route at the "right" time to the "right" patient with the "right" documentation.

A large part of the Mercy Meds program are the Computers On Wheels (COWs), which allow nurses access to patient profiles and medication information before anything is administered. Upon entering a room, nurses scan barcodes on their personnel badge and the patient’s wrist band. The COWs then display current medications, correct dosage and a window of time for administering each medication. Before a patient receives any medication, it is also scanned.

Operations Coordinator for Patient Care Services Lisa Bridges, RN, led the rollout of COWs at St. Joseph’s.

"Everyone was apprehensive in the beginning," she said. "Now, they’ve learned how to use the system and know its positive aspects."

The computers are capable of alerting the nurse of any error that might be present, from the wrong patient to drug interaction or allergies, a medication looking or sounding like another, different forms of drugs, incorrect dosage or medications that have already been administered. Patients are encouraged to ask questions of the process, see that scanning regulations are followed and learn about their medications. The COWs come complete with Micromedex, which allow nurses to explain medications on a sixth-grade reading level for ease of understanding, print the information and offer it in various languages.

Since the system’s implementation in 2003, Mercy nurses have scanned more than two million doses of medication.

The health system has also decentralized its pharmacy, placing pharmacists on different floors of the hospital so that they’re more accessible for both patients and physicians. Pharmacists are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each unit is equipped with an Omni Cell, a mini-pharmacy of sorts that enables nurses to retrieve medications without leaving the floor. These electronic, automated dispensing cabinets require both nurse and patient information before any drug can be removed.

Reports can be printed from the COWs and Omni Cell, showing how well procedures are being followed, who’s responsible in any situation and what drugs are being removed. This allows the hospital to track and reduce error.

"The whole medicine delivery process is safer," Bridges said. "That makes the nurses more comfortable, it makes the patients more comfortable, and the physicians are assured their patients are receiving the drugs they have ordered and are being educated on the effects of those drugs."

St. Joseph’s is the second oldest hospital in the state and a not-for-profit, Catholic-based health center.

St. Joseph’s Mercy Health Center -- Mercy Meds Program

300 Werner Street

Hot Springs, AR