MUSCAT: The Medication Safety Introductory Workshop, organised by the Ministry of Health (MoH) represented by the Directorate-General of Medical Supplies (DGMS), began on Monday at the Oman Conference & Exhibition Centre.
The workshop aims at training group of pharmacists in implementing medication safety to join Medication Safety Team who have been trained and qualified earlier.
The workshop joined 50 pharmacists working in MoH hospitals, as well as from Sultan Qaboos University Hospital (SQUH), the Armed Forces Hospital (AFH), Royal Oman Police Hospital (ROPH), the Diwan of Royal Court’s health services, and with participation of the MoH’s Directorate General for Quality Assurance Center.
The four-day workshop provides pharmacists with important knowledge and skills to practice hospital pharmacy medication safety that is incorporated within the continuing professional education programme for pharmacists.
Moreover, the training workshop is in one of a series of training and qualification programmes specialised for improving pharmacists in the field of medication safety that are conducted in implanting the decision of the National Medication Safety Committee stipulated taking of action to activate the Sultanate’s commitment in the implementation of medication safety programmes in all sectors.
The courses are held with the aim of achieving 50 per cent reduction of severe, avoidable harm related to medications over 5 years within the WHO’s Third Global Patient Safety Challenge: Medication Without Harm.
The first day of the training workshop included five main areas in the field of medication safety that are namely general concept of medication safety, risk identification in medication use process, potential risk associated with prescribing and dispensing medication, novel approach for revising the monitoring and stages of medication use process, and medication error terminology and concept of a just culture.
Furthermore, the workshop agenda will address other key themes to illustrate methods of classifying medication safety programmes through Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and identifying the types of medication errors.
The workshop topics will also discuss the concept of high-alert medications and identify medicine classes considered to
be high-alert status, as well as discuss various strategies for storage of high alert medicine to optimise patient safety and reduce medication errors in pharmacy practice.
In addition, the scientific programme of the workshop will differentiate between medication errors, Adverse Drug Events (ADE), and Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR).
The workshop is expected to develop the pharmacist’s skills on best medication safety
practices that would contribute in monitoring and reducing medication errors and thus maintaining quality pharmaceutical services reflecting positively on the health services in general.
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