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Lecturer: Tora Hammar, senior lecturer, eHealth Institute, MEO
Medication is an essential part of health care and the appropriate treatment with drugs enables the cure and prevention of many conditions. However, drug-related problems are frequent and cause sufering for patients, and substantial costs for society. One of the key components to achieving appropriate drug treatment is the access to the needed information for the involved actors. It has been estimated that half of the medication errors are associated with the insufcient information on the patient and/or drug.
During the last decades, the prescribing of medications and handling of information in the medication management process have gone through a major transition from paper to electronic based. Digital information technology (eHealth) in the medication management process has been suggested to reduce cost, improve efciency, medication appropriateness, and safety by for example increasing legibility, standardization, and availability of information. Today digital information technology has become a natural and necessary part of medication management in Sweden but several problems remain unsolved and some new have emerged. In our research we have found weaknesses with usability, functionality, and reliability of the IT systems used. Patients are not sufciently informed and involved in the medication management process, physicians and pharmacists lack accurate information regarding patients current medications and do not have sufcient decision support system to identify and prevent drug-related problems.
In this presentation I will talk about my research in this feld and how we can use digital information technology for a safer and more appropriate use of medications.
