MindSElS: Resilience, Mindfulness and Medication Safety with Electronic Systems

Medications are one of the most common healthcare interventions and one with great risk of adverse events and serious harm to patients. Medications incidents in hospitals are frequent and a serious concern. Electronic medicine management systems (EMMS) implemented in hospital are known to reduce some safety risks but also introduce new ones. A way to prevent harm to patients from the use of medication is through organising for collective mindfulness (alertness to risks) and through learning from everyday resilience. EMMS introduced in sociotechnical contexts of hospital care may affect collective mindfulness and resilience, in ways that are context (or nation) specific, as countries differ in structures, processes, and legislation.

MindSElS is a collaboration between the Australian Institute of Health Innovation, UCL School of Pharmacy and European centres of excellence in the field of patient safety, to study mindfulness and resilience in medication safety in relation to EMMS. The research includes a mixed-method before and-after study of EMMS implementation in children hospitals in Australia, and a comparative study across four European countries (UK, France, Italy, Norway). The aims are to develop theory and method for EMMS evaluation, investigate whether and how EMMS can support organisational resilience in the use of medicines, and provide (locally/nationally-adjusted) guidance for implementation.

Other project members and collaborators: Professor Bryony Dean Franklin