National Patient Safety Foundation announces solutions winner for Janssen Elder Care Award
On Jan 06, 2003
Ellen Kinnealey, BSN receives Janssen Elder Care Award for implementation of innovative solution for medication administration at the bedside.
Chicago – The National Patient Safety Foundation (NPSF) has granted its annual Solutions Award to Ellen Kinnealey, BSN, a bedside technology specialist dedicated to patient safety. Kinnealey will receive the $10,000 Elder Care Award, sponsored by Janssen Pharmaceutica, for her paper on safer drug delivery.
The NPSF Solutions Program seeks to find proven and practical strategies, techniques or processes that reduce medical errors and improve patient safety. This year, the 2002 Solutions Program solicited solutions pertaining specifically to elder care. The NPSF received 11 abstracts and selected four finalists to submit full papers. An interdisciplinary team of patient safety experts reviewed the abstracts and rated papers based on their innovation, demonstrated success, and transferability across settings.
The 2002 award recipient, Ellen Kinnealey, BSN, is from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Massachusetts General Hospital. Because adverse drug events are known to be the single leading cause of medical injuries, Kinnealey focused on ways to improve the complex systems related to drug administration. Two primary sources of medical error were identified: 1) inadequate systems to disseminate drug knowledge to physicians and nurses; and 2) inadequate systems to ensure right drug choice and drug dosing prior to administration at bedside.
Kinnealey’s solution paper, Infusion Pumps with ‘Drug Libraries’ at the Point of Care: A Solution for Safer Drug Delivery, outlines an approach to enhancing existing technology by providing clinicians at the bedside with the knowledge, technology and confidence to deliver highly complex therapies safely. Kinnealey’s study examined the use of an electronic drug library, which is clinician designed, hospital sanctioned and customizable to different settings.
The solution was implemented in the Intensive Care Unit and Operating Room environments at Massachusetts General Hospital, and has thus far resulted in at least a 50 percent reduction in the number of drug administration errors involving syringe pumps, as indicated by clinician reports. The future goals of this program are to 1) provide the clinician at the bedside with the technology that will confirm that they are delivering the right drug; and 2) create a seamless digital pathway from physician order entry to the vein.
“The Solutions Program is one of the significant ways the NPSF identifies and disseminates concrete practices to improve patient safety,” commented Dr. Josie Williams, MD, board member and program chair for the National Patient Safety Foundation, and a member of the Solutions review committee. “Ms. Kinnealey’s paper demonstrates a solid solution for helping to assure safer drug delivery, an issue that is particularly critical for older populations. It’s a perfect example of the kind of initiative that NPSF set out to support when we created this program.”
Kinnealey will also be recognized the 5th Annual NPSF Patient Safety Congress, held March 12-15, 2003 in Washington, DC. Kinnealey’s paper, along with those of the other finalists, will be available on NPSF’s Web site at www.npsf.org.
About NPSF
The National Patient Safety Foundation was founded in 1996 by the American Medical Association, CNA HealthPro, 3M, and contributions from the Schering-Plough Corporation. The NPSF is an independent, nonprofit research and education organization. It is an unprecedented partnership of health care practitioners, institutional providers, health product providers, health product manufacturers, researchers, legal advisors, patient/consumer advocates, regulators, and policy makers committed to making health care safer for patients. Through leadership, research support, and education, the NPSF is committed to making patient safety a national priority. For more information, please visit www.npsf.org.
About Janssen Pharmaceutica Products, L.P.
Janssen Pharmaceutica Products, L.P., a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson [NYSE: JNJ], has a long track record in developing and marketing treatments for central nervous system disorders. Based in Titusville, NJ, its other specialty areas include pain management, treatment of fungal infections and therapy for gastrointestinal conditions. More information on the company can be found at www.us.janssen.com.
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