Patient safety problem identification and solution sharing among rural community pharmacists

Objectives: To implement a communication network for safety problem identification and solution sharing among rural community pharmacists and to report participating pharmacists' perceived value and impact of the network on patient safety after 1 year of implementation. Design: Action research study. Setting: Rural community pharmacies in Nebraska from January 2010 to April 2011. Participants: Rural community pharmacists who voluntarily agreed to join the Pharmacists for Patient Safety Network in Nebraska. Intervention: Pharmacists reported errors, near misses, and safety concerns through Web-based event reporting. A rapid feedback process was used to provide patient safety solutions to consider implementing across the network. Main outcome measures: Qualitative interviews were conducted 1 year after program implementation with participating pharmacists to assess use of the reporting system, value of the disseminated safety solutions, and perceived impact on patient safety in pharmacies. Results: 30 of 38 pharmacists participating in the project completed the interviews. The communication network improved pharmacist awareness, promoted open discussion and knowledge sharing, contributed to practice vigilance, and led to incorporation of proactive safety prevention practices. Conclusion: Despite low participation in error and near-miss reporting, a dynamic communication network designed to rapidly disseminate evi-dence- based patient safety strategies to reduce risk was valued and effective at improving patient safety practices in rural community pharmacies. Keywords: Pharmacists, patient safety, communication network, error reporting, risk assessment, community pharmacy, ambulatory pharmacy.