Many have suggested pharmacists ought to review clinicians’ medication orders to aid in preventing errors in hospitals. The problem is that hospitals in rural areas can have a difficult time providing pharmacist coverage around the clock. A group of critical access hospitals in northeast Minnesota recently tested a program called after-hours remote pharmacy order entry system (ARPOE), which lets them submit medication orders to a hub hospital that can provide 24-hour pharmacy staff.

The eight hospitals participating in the demo project used a central hospital in Duluth to review all medication orders after rural hospital pharmacists were off duty.

According to the report funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and appearing in the American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, pharmacists at the hub hospital identified potential drug problems for patients in the rural hospitals n more than 700 occasions in the first 20 months. Researchers compiling the report suggested that the ARPOE system played a large role in providing safer patient care than if no pharmacist had been available to review orders.

As health IT continues to assist hospitals in providing better care, similar networks such as this may prove to be effective in assisting critical access hospitals who need help or additional resource.

[via AHRQ]