Tool puts medication practices under the microscope
Monday November 12, 2007 -- Jason Thompson
Kris Wichman says long-term care homes have expressed a lot of interest in a self-assessment tool designed to help care providers achieve safe medication practices.

Developed by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) Canada, the Medication Safety Self-Assessment (MSSA) tool is intended to heighten awareness of the distinguishing characteristics of a safe medication system, act as a quality improvement tool and create a base-line of a home’s efforts to enhance safe medication use over time.

A project leader with ISMP Canada, Wichman has been busy hosting presentations for long-term care homes to introduce them to the MSSA, which was funded by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.

“There’s nothing like it in long-term care,” Wichman says, adding the tool is unique because it allows for internal risk-assessment.

“I view it as an educational tool that helps you identify where your strengths and vulnerabilities are so you can go about doing your own quality improvement actions to strengthen your medication system for your residents,” she says.

Aside from increasing medication safety, Wichman says the MSSA also acts as a vehicle for inter-disciplinary collaboration.

Through the self-assessment, members of the inter-disciplinary team share their perceptions of how the system is working with each other thus promoting awareness and understanding of difficulties the team is facing and to determine best practices to address those obstacles.

When the MSSA was originally developed, it was intended for use in the acute care setting. When Wichman was hired by ISMP Canada, there was interest in expanding the tool to long-term care.

To accomplish this, Wichman formed a working group made up of staff nurses, nurse managers, pharmacists and risk management and quality practitioners, to begin the process of modifying the hospital tool to fit the long-term care environment.

Courtesy of Wichman, included below is some of the feedback from homes that participated in the pilot phase:

- Useful for identifying improvement areas and benchmarking against other long-term care homes

- Stimulated discussion around the home’s medication system and was particularly useful for new staff members who were participating in the process

- Forces people to question and think about safe and best practices in medication administration

For more information on MSSR, visit www.ismp-canada.org.