| |
Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
 | |
|
| Documentation of drug allergies in elderly in-patients | | Author(s) | S S Dan, M Srinivasan, B Panayiotou |
| Journal title | Ageing & Health: the Journal of the Institute of Ageing and Health (West Midlands), no 11, 2004 |
| Publisher | Institute of Ageing and Health, West Midlands, 2004 |
| Pages | pp 13-16 |
| Source | http://www.iah-wmids.org.uk |
| Keywords | Drugs ; Admission [hospitals] ; Evaluation ; Stoke-on-Trent. |
| Annotation | Documenting drug allergies is one of the standards stipulated in the National Service Framework for Older People (NSF) to assess quality of prescribing. The authors investigated 42 consecutive admissions at the Department of Geriatric Medicine, City General Hospital, Stoke-on-Trent. Of these, 28 patients had entries in case notes about the presence or absence of drug allergies, and 24 had entries in prescription charts. In 17, documentation was found in both case notes and prescription charts, while 7 had no record in either case notes or prescription charts. On examining previous case notes, prescription charts and other sources of information, inaccurate entries in the last admission were identified in 2 patients. Documentation of drug allergy status in older in-patients was found to be less than the optimal goal of 100%. As well as omissions, inaccuracies were found in some of the recorded information. Increased awareness of doctors about the necessity of correctly documenting all known drug allergies and adverse drug reactions (ADRs) is needed. Involvement of pharmacists and trained nurses in this regard may also be helpful. Computerised records and prescriptions could be another way of ensuring accurate documentation and reducing the incidence of adverse drug events. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-041214201 A |
| Classmark | LLD: LD:QKH: 4C: 8STC |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
|
| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
| |
|