Design of electronic nursing Kardex system for medication error prevention in IPD patients

Safety of patients and quality of medical cares are important factors in healthcare services. This research focuses on design of a process and implementation of an information system to prevent medication errors in an inpatient ward (IPD). Research studied as-is processes regarding medication, identified non-value added activities, and risks of medication errors in nursing processes. To-be processes were designed to prevent medication errors without a trade-off in work efficiency. An electronic nursing Kardex (e-Kardex) was developed based on new processes to prevent medication errors during transcription, dispensing and administration. E-Kardex was implemented and tested at two individual IPD wards of Ramathibodi Hospital, Thailand.