Sammanfattning
Background: The quality of drug-based treatment may be affected by how drugs are handled. This is why the multidose has been introduced as a replacement for the dosette box. Moreover, this is the background for a pilot project in a number of Norwegian municipalities where multidoses are dispensed via an e-prescription scheme.
Objective: The objective of the article is to shed light on experiences gleaned from the pilot project on whether patients receive the correct medication at the correct time.
Method: The empirical material consists of interviews with the key actors in the administration of drugs: pharmacies, regular GPs and community nurses. Findings are discussed in light of other research and formal regulations in the field.
Results: Pharmacies and doctors have good experiences with the scheme. Community nurses find that there are fewer errors and that e-procedures are faster than paper-based procedures when multidoses need to be altered. The actors describe how sources of error linked to paper-based solutions have disappeared. The fact that all changes in drug prescriptions are checked routinely by the pharmacy represents a further quality assurance. A weakness of the scheme is that community nurses no longer have access to their patients’ medication list.
Conclusion: Multidoses in e-prescriptions give improvements in quality in the handling of drugs. A number of measures will support the beneficial impacts of the e-multidose:
* The distribution of responsibilities among some of the actors must be clarified.
* Doctors’ EPR systems must be made more transparent and easier to use.
* Everyone who handles the e-multidose, including community nurses, must have access to the current medication list (LIB).