Conference on the Strategies for Preventing Medication Errors

Over 220 doctors, pharmacists and nurses attended the "2010 Joint Conference of Drug Safety Research Centres" on 28 November at the Postgraduate Education Centre of the Prince of Wales Hospital.  The Conference was jointly organised by the Drug Safety Research Centres of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the University of London, the University of Bordeaux, the Department of Health and the Hospital Authority.  Leading experts from Hong Kong and Europe provided an update on the strategies for preventing medication errors in hospitals, the community and the interface between hospital and community care.  The requirement for safe medication use is to prescribe, dispense and administer the right drug, with the right dose and route, at the right time to the right patient.  An error can occur at any stage of the medication use process, which may lead to patient harm.  The participants learnt about the root causes and management of medication errors, the high risk situations and the multidisciplinary and systems approach to prevention of medication errors.  The Conference provided the participants with an opportunity to share ideas how healthcare professionals could work together to promote medication safety.

At the Conference, Prof. Thomas Y.K. Chan (Director, Centre for Food and Drug Safety), Prof. Vincent H.L. Lee (Director, School of Pharmacy), Prof. Dianna T.F. Lee (Director, the Nethersole School of Nursing), Prof. Brian Tomlinson (Head, Division of Clinical Pharmacology, Department of Medicine and Therapeutics), Prof. Ian C.K. Wong (Director, Centre for Paediatric Pharmacy Research, School of Pharmacy, the University of  London), Prof. Nicholas Moore (Head, Department of Pharmacology, the University of Bordeaux) and other experts emphasised the importance of continuing efforts and structured programmes to teach and train healthcare professionals, to monitor medication errors, to oversee the implementation of improvement plans and to conduct research.