Medicatieveiligheid : bronnen vanaandacht

This study was set up to explore one of the issues of potential risk in health care, drug use. The availability of information sources in Dutch hospitals, which were deemed suitable to examine and improve medication safety, was evaluated by means of an internationally oriented literature study and contact with the main supplier of computerized hospital systems to Dutch hospitals. The objective was to inventory such sources, assess their suitability for use as an indicator of medication safety, and explore the availability of these sources in the Netherlands. It was concluded that much information is present in hospitals that can be used to examine and improve medication safety. Considering the advancing automation in hospitals, these data could become increasingly employable and analysable. Suitable automated systems are now becoming available to a wider extent, although - to date - such systems have been implemented in Dutch hospitals on a limited scale only. This wider availability will provide an opportunity for, but also alert care institutions such as hospitals to, their responsibilities, especially in view of the estimated extent of drug-related problems presently. Very few suitable indicators are available to compare hospitals on issues of medication safety. In this report several indicators are proposed that can be used by the Dutch Health Care Inspectorate in future to compare the level of organisation of hospitals for the benefit of medication safety.