Community and Oral Health

Herston Infectious Diseases Institute (HeIDI) clinician research fellow and RBWH clinical nurse consultant Karen is making our medication processes safer! 🥼 💊

Each day we administer thousands of medications across our hospitals, with Karen's research through HeIDI and UQ dedicated to improving medication administration processes.

The tool she has created has been so effective, it's been picked up in Canada and America!

"When I started in safe medication practice 22 years ago, we didn't have a tool to assess our practice - my push from the start has been to design and validate a rigorous but simple and effective tool for nurses to make medication administration even safer," Karen said.

"It's shown a statistically significant improvement in safer medication practice, and it's a simple reminder and prompt for nurses when at the patient bedside, rather than adding another step to their busy day.

"It's been designed with consumers too, as patients are our final safety check - it's so important that we are engaging directly with our patients to make sure the medication is right and they are part of the process, keeping them safe in hospital and also when they go home."

#ShoutoutSaturday to Karen for her innovation to improve the way we work! 🙌 ... See MoreSee Less