Mater Mothers' Private Brisbane

July to December 2014

Medication safety

Mater hospitals are committed to ensuring patients who require medication receive the right medications at the right time.  With around three million medications administered to patients annually when they are in our hospitals, Mater has a continuous focus on eliminating errors in medication prescription, dispensing, administration and patient monitoring. 

Through our innovative Medication Safety Program, Mater has been able to focus on key aspects that contribute to ensuring the safety of patients receiving medications. We strive to continuously improve our performance using measures that are benchmarked across other Australian hospitals.

Medication Incidents

Measure

This measure shows the number of medication related incidents that have been reported to occur where the patient needed additional care and treatment that otherwise was not required. A lower number is better. We have not considered a comparison rate given Mater aims to ultimately have zero medication incidents resulting in intervention and additional patient care.

Performance

There have been no medication related incidents causing permanent harm or death in this reporting period. This measure highlights the positive effect the Medication Safety Program has had in preventing serious incidents. From 2009 to 2012 a 50 per cent reduction per year was achieved, and more recently the number has remained constant.

Mater Mothers’ Hospital has reduced the number of medication related incidents since January 2011 and has had a period of over two years without a single medication-related incident that required additional care.