Disputation: Alma Mulac

Doctoral candidate Alma Mulac at the Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, is defending the thesis "Medication errors in hospitals - Exploring medication safety through incident reports and observation of practice" for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor.

Time and place: , Auditorium 1, Helga Eng
Alma Mulac

Følg disputasen på Zoom her

Trial lecture - time and place

01.04.2022, 10.15. Auditorium 1, Helga Eng

The potential of technology and digitalization to improve patient safety in healthcare

Conferral summary

Funnene i avhandlingen viser til at alvorlig pasientskade har skjedd som følge av feilmedisinering på sykehus. Denne avhandlingen gir ny kunnskap om rollen til teknologi i å forebygge feilmedisinering. Videre foreslår avhandlingen effektive systemtiltak for å forbedre sikkerhet i legemiddelhåndtering på sykehus.

Main research findings

Patient received a tenfold overdose with chemotherapy while in hospital’ was a recent headline in a Norwegian national newspaper, unfortunately not an isolated event. The procedure, treatment or medication that is supposed to make a patient feel better, can at times cause patient harm. Medication errors are one of the most common incidents in healthcare and are associated with considerable patient harm. Learning from previous errors can aid in designing preventive measures. One such measure is barcode medication administration, using scanning of barcodes on medicines and patients’ wristband to verify the correct medication administration. Despite implementing measures to improve safety, it is difficult to know if anticipated improvements are occurring, since their use is not routinely measured. This thesis found that a substantial number of patients were harmed by preventable events. The thesis also provided new knowledge about the role of technology in improving medication safety. Furthermore, the thesis proposes effective, systemic measures to improve medication safety in hospitals.

Read more (in Norwegian)

Published Mar. 18, 2022 9:33 AM - Last modified Mar. 28, 2022 7:32 PM
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Adjudication committee

Professor Marja Airaksinen, Division of Pharmacology and Pharmacotherapy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Helsinki

Professor Karina Aase, SHARE - Center for Resilience in Healthcare, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stavanger

Professor Stein Bergan, Section for Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo

Supervisors

Professor Anne Gerd Granås, Section for Pharmaceutics and Social Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo

Associate professor Liv Mathiesen, Section for Pharmacology and Pharmaceutical Biosciences, Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo

Professor Katja Taxis, Department of Pharmacotherapy and Clinical Pharmacy, University of Groningen

Associate professor Ellen Hagesæther, Department of Life Sciences and Health Pharmacy, Oslo Metropolitan University

Chair of defence

Head of Department Kathrin Bjerknes, Department of Pharmacy, University of Oslo