Hospitals and health facilities across Western Australia will implement an electronic medication register by local healthcare software provider Modeus.

According to a media release, the HS8 Controlled Medication Register will be rolled out first at King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth before its gradual implementation across the WA Health system, which includes about 80 hospitals and health facilities.

WHAT IT'S ABOUT

HS8 allows hospitals to transition from a manual, paper-based system to an intelligent platform that allows nurses and pharmacists to save time spent on record keeping. Based on an analysis of its usage, the system can help quicken the time to complete a 5-item distribution by 40% compared to using paper registers and hasten stock checks by up to 30%. 

This system has safety features that help prevent medication errors, as well as closed-loop governance and security that ensure the controlled medications are tracked and accounted for.

Moreover, it can integrate with many hospital systems, including iPharmacy, PAS, and Active Directory. 

WHY IT MATTERS

WA Health, through its shared service provider Health Support Services, was on the market for a solution to improve medication safety and help nurses and pharmacists focus more on providing patient care.

Michael Petrovski, chief pharmacist of King Edward Memorial Hospital and project manager, said they were impressed with HS8's intuitive design, functional capabilities and the positive feedback from current users.

"Improving medication safety and governance throughout our hospital network has been at the forefront of our thinking to meet the needs of a digital health system. We are confident Modeus will deliver a terrific solution, future-proofing best practice controlled medication management, giving nurses and pharmacists more time to put back into providing patient care," he said.

THE LARGER TREND

Modeus first presented its solution to WA Health in 2017, and since then, it has brought new integrations, features, and design enhancements to the system.

"We are delighted that WA hospitals will be implementing a product that is truly the first of its kind anywhere in the world," said Modeus CEO Carl Zufi in a statement.

According to Modeus, HS8 is the first software-only electronic controlled drug register that is live anywhere in the world. "What makes HS8 unique is that it is a software-based system, and it has workflows (such as for patients' own medications) that have not been developed by any other company globally," the company claimed.

This system has already been adopted by 45 Ramsay Health Care hospitals across Australia, as well as by two cancer care centres, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne and Chris O'Brien Lifehouse in Camperdown.

In other news, Health Support Services also helped deliver a pharmaceutical analytics solution across WA Health last year. Called Pharmalytics, the application assists hospitals in making informed decisions around ordering, dispensing, and distribution by providing an overview of hospitals' pharmaceutical expenditures and supplies.