Speakers
Dr. David WHITAKER
United Kingdom
Dr. Whitaker was a Consultant at Manchester Royal Infirmary UK, past President of the Association of Anaesthetists (AAGBI), past Chairman of the Association of Cardiothoracic Anaesthetists (ACTA) and a past elected member of the Council of the Royal College of Anaesthetists. He is an Honorary Fellow of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland and Honorary Member of the European Society of Anaesthesiology and Intensive Care (ESAIC)
He currently chairs the European Board of Anaesthesiology Patient Safety Committee and in 2010 he co-authored the Helsinki Declaration on Patient Safety in Anaesthesiology now signed by over 200 organizations worldwide.
Dr. Whitaker is a member of the ESAIC Patient Safety and Quality Committee and a past member of the WFSA Quality and Safety Committee.
Dr. Whitaker’s interests are implementing safer clinical practices e.g. patient blood management, medication safety, monitoring outside the operating theatre e.g. capnography in intensive care, sedation and resuscitation, and Standardisation of the ‘Cardiac Arrest Call Number’ to 2222 already nationally adopted by 16 countries worldwide.
Medication harm is greatest cause of preventable harm: about 6% of patients suffer preventable harm and incidents related to medication errors are the highest cause, representing 25% of preventable harm. This has been recognised by the WHO in initiating their 3rd Global Patient Safety Challenge: ‘Medication Without Harm’
Great improvements have been made in Patient Safety in anaesthesia with monitoring and airway management but apart from implementation ISO 26285 standardised syringe labels in 2004, there has been little progress in reducing harm during the complex process of IV medication.
The European Board of Anaesthesiology (EBA) has published recommendations for safe medication practice, including a 13-point checklist to help with their implementation. https://journals.lww.com/ejanaesthesiology/fulltext/2017/01000/the_european_board_of_anaesthesiology.2.aspx
The level of their implementation has been surveyed in Europe and the recommendations will be discussed particular those that are not so well implemented. Arranging IV Medications in pharmacological class can improve Patient Safety. The correct preparation of IV medications into syringes including labelling is particularly important and details of this will be discussed. The NPSA Standard Operating Procedure for preparing injectable medicines has 52 procedural steps, 58% of these can be removed if Prefilled Syringes are supplied instead [1]. The risk of medication error during preparation is 17 times greater when syringes are prepared by hand. Other benefits of using Prefilled Syringes will be outlined. Gallipots, bowls or other open containers for drugs, antiseptics or saline should no longer be used and IV cannulae should be flushed after the administration of drugs to reduce the risk of their inadvertent administration in the recovery room or on the ward. The Association of Anaesthetists has also recently published similar IV medication guidelines [2].
It is recommended that anaesthetic departments use the EBA checklist is used as in Europe to help with the monitoring these recommendations implementation.
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