Up to 98,000 deaths occur annually in the United States because of medical errors, with medication errors contributing as many as 7,000 deaths. A stream of research has shown that health information technology can reduce medication errors in prescribing, transcribing, dispensing, and administration of medications. Consequently, IOM recommends increased adoption of health information technology in healthcare. Our purpose is to develop an implementation plan for pharmacy health information systems in critical access hospitals (CAH). Development partners are Florida's 12 current CAHs, the University of Florida's College of Pharmacy, Shands Healthcare, Florida Medical Quality Assurance, Inc., and the Florida DOH Office of Rural Health. Partners have been involved in patient safety projects in CAHS for two years. CAHs are in need of health information technology. Most CAHs have no staffing for concurrent prescription order review, have limited access to drug information, no pharmacy information system or other technologies, and very limited financial resources; add to this a low patient census. These challenges define the development of the strategic implementation plan for pharmacy information systems in CAHs. The six-month planning period will include an onsite survey of HIT, flowcharting the medication use system, an assessment of resources, and other characteristics. Survey information is condensed and presented for discussion in a first summit. Summit 1 is to develop a request for vendor applications. Summit 2 brings together project and hospital personnel to evaluate vendor applications on pharmacy IT. Establishing a consensus on the desired system and features allows for group purchasing. Information gathered during the planning phase is used to write a strategic HIT implementation plan for all CAHs, balancing human and technology factors. Doctor's Memorial Hospital will serve as a showcase model for the pharmacy health information technology that will be implemented in all critical access hospitals in a following phase. ? ? ?
