Pharmacy Plus and its Proactive Care System wins Bristol Evening Post “2010 Innovator of the Year” business award.
The Award
Pharmacy Plus has won a prestigious award, for its groundbreaking development of the Proactive Care System (PCS). This latest recognition came as part of this year's Bristol Evening Post Business Awards, whose Gala night was held at the Bristol City Marriott hotel on Thursday, June 17. Despite its relative newness and revolutionary way of operating, PCS has taken the Healthcare industry by storm this year, having already been "Highly Commended" in the high profile 2010 Patients Safety Awards.
Proactive Care System (PCS)
The Proactive Care System (PCS) won due to its unique ability to help care homes and hospitals to reduce medication errors which are now costing the NHS millions of pounds each year.
Numerous reports have previously highlighted poor medicines management in care homes, causing significant concern for patient safety and major cost implications to the NHS. An estimated 1 in 15 hospital admissions are caused by drug errors (appx 1) and 70% of care homes residents also experience drug errors (appx 2).
In response to these challenges, Pharmacy Plus created an IT solution called the Proactive Care System (PCS). It is the first system that delivers patient safety by prompting staff when drugs are due and preventing incorrect administrations using a unique barcode validation process. PCS further manages stock control, provides accountability and reports on every aspect of practice including near misses. Independent university led research (carried out by UWE) has shown that PCS can significantly prevent drug errors and 92% of staff interviewed would not return to paper-based systems.
Pharmacy Plus has already signed up one national Care Home Group, (PCS is now being successfully used across Alpha Care Homes) as well as many independent homes.
Tariq Muhammad Chief Executive of Pharmacy Plus, says, “The Proactive Care System can drastically reduce medication errors which can seriously harm patients and put enormous strain on the NHS. This is technology that can make an enormous difference to both the lives of care home residents and to the working lives of nursing staff. “
Judges impressed
The judges were impressed by the way that Pharmacy Plus had developed the Proactive Care System (PCS), completely “in house” and had not only created a unique product and service, but had at the same time had also genuinely improved the lives of patients and staff.
The Bristol Evening Post (BEP) event is now in its fourth year and in spite of the uncertain economic times the awards attracted more than double the number of entries than in previous years. There were 7 categories including “Innovator of the Year”, which Pharmacy Plus won.
Managing director of Bristol News and Media, Dawna Stickler, chaired the panel of judges. She said: "We have been absolutely thrilled with the number and quality of entries we received, even though it made the judging process that much harder. She added:” These awards celebrate everything that is best about Bristol and its thriving business community and every year the event just seems to get bigger and better."
A special edition of the BEP will be released on 23rd June, covering all the entries and results in detail. Anyone wishing to see how the Proactive Care System (PCS) works please watch the video on our website (www.pharmacyplus.co.uk), or ring (0845 121 1001), to arrange for a visit from one of our experts.
Appx.
1 Patient Safety Report - Health Committee House of Commons - June 2009
2 Care Home Use of Medicines Study 2009 – (CHUMS) - commissioned by the Dept of Health