"More time saved and even less error-prone"
Dutch Bravis hospital recently made the switch to version 6.2 of HiX, including the standard open content. This means that not just the hospital, but the hospital pharmacy as well, is better equipped than ever. Anneke Sprangers, hospital pharmacist at Bravis hospital, picks out two highlights relevant to her workflow. She also shares why and how she participates in several work groups working to further enrich HiX.
Sprangers: "One of version 6.2's new gems, for me as hospital pharmacist, is the option of automatically dividing medication over two syringes. This is necessary for Azacitidine, for example, which is generally never administered with a single syringe. In the previous version of HiX, such dosages were not automatically divided over multiple syringes, which meant we had to come up with a manual workaround. HiX now being able to do so automatically saves me time calculating and registering the dosages."
Improved simultaneous preparations
The second highlight concerns cluster, or simultaneous, preparations. 'HiX 6.2 improves a lot in this regard', says Sprangers. "With simultaneous preparations, we previously had to remove all items from the inventory individually. With version 6.2, HiX is able to do so automatically, which saves me a lot of time. It is also much more efficient and less prone to errors, as there is no risk of human errors during the automated process."
Sprangers highlights the importance of working together with colleagues from different healthcare facilities on innovations to the EHR. To help achieve this, she participates in two work groups within the Medication/Pharmacy user group: Prescribing Chemo Medication and Medication Preparations. "Being able to exchange thoughts and ideas as a group, and get an idea of the consensus of various care facilities is essential to improving the quality of our healthcare."
Position of chair
Anneke Sprangers is chair of the Medication Preparations group, a role she is more than happy to fulfil. "As chair, I am able to monitor the progress and communicate with all participants via email and via the online forum. We have a very active group. All members are easily approachable and are quick to respond to any questions. It's an ideal way of staying in touch and sharing knowledge. We - and with us our respective healthcare facilities - all gain from this."
Just like the other work groups within the various ChipSoft user groups, the Medication Preparations group works on three topics throughout the year. When a topic is finished and has resulted in a HiX innovation, the group collectively picks a new element to improve.
Future solutions
Sprangers: "We are currently working on the topics of excess preparation, preparations with multiple ingredients, and batch medication preparation. For the former, the wish is that the content of the injection needle is included in calculating the total content of the syringe. For the second, the hospital pharmacists would like to be able to register preparations with multiple ingredients, such as parenteral nutrition, directly; we currently have to use workarounds, which are inherently detrimental to efficiency and safety. Finally, batch medication preparation should primarily result in a decrease of the workload and a more efficient work process. These are three very interesting topics, for which we hope to be able to find appropriate solutions."
Sprangers is hopeful for 2022. "I hope we'll continue working together and that we'll tackle more great topics. That would mean we've been able to improve our EHR in a number of meaningful ways."