Today is World Patient Safety Day and in what has been a challenging year for health, MOIC ensured Patient Safety remained at the forefront of our health service. World Patient Safety Day was established in 2019 to enhance global understanding of patient safety, increase public engagement in the safety of health care and promote global actions to enhance patient safety and reduce patient harm.
The below summarises a few of the key projects MOIC worked on during 2020 and 2021 that put patient safety front and centre.
PPE
As a result of the urgent requirement for PPE for the health and social care workforce, a partnership was established between the HSC Business Services Organisation’s Procurement and Logistics Service (BSOPaLS) and the Medicines Optimisation and Innovation Centre (MOIC) . The partnership needed to ensure that products from manufacturers and suppliers who were moving into the area of making and supplying high volumes of PPE, where this was not their normal area of expertise, were up to standard to ensure protection for the wearer and for patient safety. The process had to be in place before procurement to ensure safe, effective and fit-for-purpose PPE was supplied to the workforce in their fight against COVID-19.
ICU Critical Care Medicines
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented global demand for essential supportive medicines, particularly in critical care. Worldwide concern was escalating due to the potential impact of medicine constraints. To drive patient safety, a regional model was developed to calculate approximate critical drug requirements and map against available stock in Trusts and suppliers. This enabled estimation of treatment capacity for these medicines regionally, including for anticipated surges and informed regional planning and preparedness. Read more on this work:
https://ejhp.bmj.com/content/27/5/263
Polypharmacy
Polypharmacy’ describes the concomitant use of multiple medicines. The more medicines you take, the more likely you are to have an admission to hospital. The iSIMPATHY project is designed to tackle the problem and this project continued with medicine reviews throughout the pandemic and enabled patients to get the best from their medication.
Digital Enablement
MOIC are working alongside partners in Europe to look at how digital technology can enhance care at home and improve patient lifestyles. This enables patients to stay at home and puts patient care and safety first. The project called SHAPES is being delivered by an EU wide interdisciplinary consortium with blended expertise.