Audits at Aspen Hospital Lautoka have found doctors were not prescribing medicines according to required standards, leading to medication errors, the hospital’s general manager, Dr Rigamoto Taito, said.
Speaking during a panel discussion at the Fiji Medical Association annual conference, Dr Taito said patient safety needed to be prioritised across Fiji’s hospitals, with simple measures capable of making a significant difference to the quality of care.
She recommended the International Patient Safety Goals, which cover patient identification, communication, safe medication use, safe surgery and infection control.
“We’ve been doing a lot of audits and we, doctors, are not prescribing according to standards, sadly,” she said.
Dr Taito said the director of Medical Services had been tasked with working with doctors to improve medication prescribing because it appeared to be a leading cause of medication errors.
She said hospitals also needed to establish national performance benchmarks and quality indicators so the quality of care could be measured rather than simply assumed.
Dr Taito said waiting times were a common complaint from the public and hospitals should set clear timeframes for how long patients should wait.
She said clinical outcomes should also be measured to determine whether patients were receiving better care, while infection-control benchmarks should be established across hospitals.
Dr Taito said measuring these areas would allow health facilities to identify weaknesses, track improvements and hold services accountable for the quality of care being provided.
She also highlighted safe-surgery checklists, effective communication and correct patient identification as important measures for reducing preventable risks.
“If you look at it, they don’t cost much money, but it makes a huge impact.”
