Impact of Medication Dose Tracking Technology on Nursing Practice

Abstract

Objective: The impact of providing nursing staff access to data collected through a medication dose tracking technology (MDTT) web portal was investigated. Methods: A quasi-experimental, nonrandomized, pre-post intervention study was conducted in the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (CTICU) at Duke University Hospital. The change in the number of medication requests per dispense routed to the pharmacy electronic health record (EHR) in-basket was analyzed pre and post web portal access. Other endpoints included the number of MDTT web portal queries per day by nursing staff, change in nursing satisfaction survey scores, and technician time associated with processing medication requests pre and post web portal access. The pre web portal access phase of the study occurred from June 1, 2014 to August 31, 2014. The post web portal access phase occurred from October 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Results: An 11.4% decrease in the number of medication requests per dispense was exhibited between the pre and post web portal access phases of the study (0.0579 vs 0.0513, respectively; p < .001). Pre and post surveys showed a significant improvement in nurses' satisfaction regarding access to information on the location of medications (p = .009). Additionally, CTICU nursing staff utilized the MDTT web portal for 3.21 queries per day from October 1, 2014 to December 31, 2014. Conclusion: Providing nurses access to data collected via an MDTT decreased the number of communications between nursing and pharmacy staff regarding medication availability and led to statistically significant improvements in nursing satisfaction for certain aspects of the medication distribution process.

Keywords: dose tracking; medication systems; missing doses; nurses; pharmacists; quality assurance; technology.