The 80-member Pharmacy Team for Sentara Healthcare has won a national peer award from the American Society of Health System Pharmacists (ASHP). The Best Practices award to Sentara is for a system-wide initiative to reduce adverse events from high-risk intravenous medications.
The Sentara pharmacy team serves six acute care hospitals, seven nursing centers and three assisted living centers from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg in Virginia as well as northeastern North Carolina.
"We’re willing to try innovative practices to stay on the cutting edge," says Sentara Pharmacy Director Timothy Jennings. "Our system also gives us good tools that make us more efficient," Jennings continues, "and it’s great to receive external validation of our hard work." The award will be presented in December at the ASHP’s mid-year clinical meeting in Orlando, Florida.
Sentara pharmacists have made strides in patient safety using, among other things, Sunrise Clinical Manager, a software program that targets potential drug interactions and adverse events before they reach the bedside.
"Good systems are out there, Tim Jennings adds, "and we try to stay 100% compliant with Institute for Safe Medication Practices. It’s all about execution."
Previous Best Practices award for Sentara Pharmacy
Sentara also won a similar Best Practices award from ASHP for its Resistance Kills campaign in 1999, which achieved a 33% reduction in antibiotic usage in the region through an intensive awareness campaign.