The University of Nottingham and FDB have partnered to deliver a key enhancement to its prescribing decision support technology used by thousands of practices.
Vital ‘PINCER’ prescribing safety indicators have been introduced to the system to help avoid errors. PINCER is a proven pharmacist-led IT-based intervention to reduce clinically important medication errors in primary care.
The introduction of the indicator to the medicines management system supports a national roll-out with the aim of the PINCER tool to identify at-risk patients so that corrective action can be taken to reduce hazardous prescribing.
Using the principles of root cause analysis, a pharmacist then works with the practice to draw up action plans to address any immediate risk, and changes to systems and processes required to prevent any error from recurring.
Kerry Oliver, managing director of PRIMIS “The agreement to embed the PINCER indicators in OptimiseRx provides enormous reach for what will be of vital benefit to key prescribing decisions within thousands of practices throughout England.”
“Including them in such a widely used medicines management system will be an important factor for the sustainability of the PINCER indicators, emphasising their role in evolving knowledge and processes that help to prevent medication errors from recurring.”
Darren Nichols, UK managing director at FDB “Our national partnership with PRIMIS is a crucial development in our providing GP practices with the necessary guidance and support to ensure they are alerted to potentially hazardous prescribing.”
“We have listened to clinical commissioners and prescribers across the country who see the inclusion of the latest PINCER indicators within OptimiseRx as an important component of their adoption of national policies for helping to safeguard patients.”
The University of Nottingham’s PRIMIS team are leading on the national roll-out of the PINCER intervention in partnership with the national network of Academic Health Science Networks. FDB is one of the first delivery partners to implement the PINCER Prescribing Safety Indicators through a software solution.
