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Background-- We read with interest and admiration the recent letter in the NZMJ1 which demonstrates the value of engaging junior medical staff actively in quality and safety practices and activities. The following describes our recent experience at Waitemata District Health Board (WDHB)
Prescribing is the commonest therapeutic intervention. It is also a major source of inadvertent harm for hospital patients. Medication errors and adverse drug events affect an unacceptable number of New Zealanders each year, with resultant permanent disability or death.2
WDHB has included medication safety as a consistent theme running through the PGY1 education programme. The aim has been to demonstrate and profile the role of the quality management team in promoting safe practice.
Improving prescribing practice is part of a nationwide patient safety agenda. We have profiled patient and medication safety, utilising the skills of our quality teams and pharmacists by including them in formal teaching and clinical learning thus creating opportunities for this to happen.
Intervention-- Our goal was to promote collaboration between physicians and pharmacists and to role model high performance interprofessional teams in action, emphasising team work as one of the most effective approach's to ensure...