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News release: Colorado - Denver/BoulderNovember 1, 2002 For more information, call: Colorado Patient Safety Coalition honors Kaiser Permanente Denver, CO – A special team of Kaiser Permanente pharmacists was honored today for identifying and preventing medication errors for thousands of patients. The team fields 1,000 calls a day from patients, spotting potentially dangerous drug interactions, allergic reactions and mistakes in following label directions. The Clinical Pharmacy Call Center was one of eight programs in the state to receive an annual award from the Colorado Patient Safety Coalition. The coalition of more than 20 health care organizations and businesses aims to foster patient safety practices throughout the state. This is the second year the coalition has issued awards. Another Kaiser Permanente pharmacy program was honored in 2001. "This has been a big hit with patients," said Troy Stubbings, Pharmacy Call Center director. "So many people tell us that they've never had anyone pay this much attention to their medications. That's an important message we want to get across to our patients - clinical pharmacists are part of their doctor's team and are there to help them with their medication questions." Fifteen clinical pharmacists and six pharmacy technicians take calls from patients who have problems with their medications. (The pharmacists are accessible through Kaiser Permanente's main appointment line, 303-338-4545.) Pharmacists call up Kaiser Permanente members' electronic medical record to help them track potential problems, and they make notes in the record to help prevent future medication errors. The team also calls new Kaiser Permanente members to evaluate medications prescribed to them before they joined Kaiser Permanente. They have found that new members' prescriptions aren't in keeping with current evidence-based guidelines 11 percent of the time; they were taking drugs that were no longer needed 12 percent of the time; and they weren't following doctor's orders 6 percent of the time. The Pharmacy Call Center is the type of innovation made possible when health care is provided in a coordinated team approach. Each patient benefits from a full spectrum of health care experts, who are tied together by powerful information technology tools. Such an approach has enabled Kaiser Permanente's Colorado region to lead the nation in care of heart attack patients, diabetics and mental health patients - and thus be listed among the top 15 health plans in the nation by the independent National Committee for Quality Assurance. Kaiser Permanente is a non-profit health care organization that cares for 409,000 members in the six-county Denver metro area and in Colorado Springs. In the Denver metro area, care is provided by a coordinated team of physicians, nurses, pharmacists, dietitians, mental health counselors and physical therapists. In Colorado Springs, Kaiser Permanente cares for its members through an affiliated network of community-based physicians and other health care providers.
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