MPS Welcomes Pharmacy Board of Australia’s Guidelines on DAAs with a Focus on Patient Safety

In September the Pharmacy Board of Australia published revised guidelines that provide guidance to the profession on a range of issues. One of the key issues reviewed was Dose Administration Aids (DAAs), with new guidelines released. These guidelines provide additional guidance, some of which includes labelling of dose administration aids (DAAs) and packing of DAAs by a third party. MPS welcomes these guidelines which take effect today, 7 December 2015.

At the end of the day, the primary aim of the Pharmacy Board is a focus on patient safety. Indeed in the past the Board has issued warnings about DAAs where patient safety has been compromised. At the same time with an ageing population, who consume many chronic therapy medicines, coupled with significant government funding for DAAs, third party facilitated DAAs are here to stay. It is indeed the only way pharmacy can deal with the tsunami of patients that will require a DAA moving into the future. With that in mind MPS CEO Luke Fitzgerald presses the case for MPS as the DAA partner of choice.

“We are proud that MPS now services 40,000 aged care residents and community customers and the number is growing. Safety is our priority. The ‘elephant in the room’ that no one wants to talk about is error rates, “stated Mr Fitzgerald.

“We are all human and errors will occur. It is critical to have systems and procedures in place that minimise any risk of errors. What our data shows is that with our MPS packettes our documented error rate is 1 in 80,000 packettes. While I would be delighted if that error rate was zero, we also have to be realistic. What I can categorically state is that our specific error rate is significantly lower than any human packing process. We are aiming for an error rate of 4 in every 1 million pouches, to achieve this MPS has embarked on a program of creating a culture of continuous improvement (CI) in everything we do. Our aim is to provide excellence in service to pharmacies, facilities and the community. The methodology that we will be using is Lean Six Sigma which specializes in facilitating the establishment of sustainable continuous improvement in organisations. Six Sigma quality means that 99.99967% of what we produce and provide will be accurate and delivered correctly and on time to the pharmacies and Aged Care Facilities.”

“Furthermore at MPS we have our industry leading stringent checking processes using the MDM – Medication Detection Machine, this process is designed to ensure the contents of the MPS Packette exactly match the medication order supplied. If the MDM is unable to get a clear view of any medication, it highlights the roll and further checks are made by our Quality Control Officers. This is what facilitates our laser sharp focus on minimising errors.”

“MPS has three TGA Licensed Dose Manufacturing Facilities across Australia that follow Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards and processes. We are also proud to work with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia, and to be endorsed by them,” stated Mr Fitzgerald.

“We welcome the Pharmacy Board DAA guidelines. At MPS we have the track history of high productivity with a focus on safety. We would be delighted to showcase our state of the art Dose Manufacturing Facilities to any pharmacist considering a third party DAA partner. The time to partner in now,” concluded Mr Fitzgerald.

MPS delivers medication management solutions to enable pharmacists to better serve both community patients and Residential Aged Care Facility residents. This is facilitated by smart solutions which help make provisioning and taking medicines simple, safe and secure which directly aligns with our company vision to Improve quality of life by eliminating preventable medication incidents.

If MPS customers are wanting further clarification on how best use the new guidelines they are urged to speak to the MPS representative in each of their states who will be able to provide guidance.