Improving Your QRE Reporting Program
With any safety program, one of the most important objectives is to identify risk. By understanding these risks, effective prevention controls can be implemented. The challenge in a busy pharmacy is to be able to sift through the many complex layers of cognitive and mechanical tasks and to identify the most critical risk. While reporting every QRE provides some insight into a pharmacy’s systems and operations, it comes at the cost of time and resources already committed to business operations, management activities, and patient care. A more focused strategy minimizes the time needed to report and analyze QREs with potentially limited learning value. The primary goal of a safety program is to reduce the burden of harm. Learning from past events is one strategy that a pharmacy uses to improve systems and reduce the risk of future harm. An effective and efficient safety program is one that provides the greatest learning opportunities by focusing on certain categories of events determined by the pharmacy – QREs of Special Interest.