Salford MedicAtion Safety dasHboard (SMASH) Trial
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Salford MedicAtion Safety dasHboard (SMASH) Trial
IRAS ID
181385
Contact name
Niels Peek
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
The University of Manchester
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 5 months, 31 days
Research summary
More than 2.7 million medications are prescribed in primary care in England each day. Adverse events arising as a result of prescribing errors, or failure to monitor critical parameters afterwards, are an important source of patient morbidity. A recent study in English general practices identified prescribing and monitoring errors in 5% of prescribed medication items, with one in 550 items containing a severe (potentially life threatening) error.
Electronic health records (EHRs) provide opportunities to identify and correct such errors, and thus prevent harm to patients. We will evaluate a pharmacist-led information technology intervention in Salford (Greater Manchester), which has a population of 250,000 and is served by an EHR integrated across primary and secondary care. The intervention combines access to an electronic medication safety dashboard with outreach visits to general practices by trained pharmacists. The dashboard interrogates EHRs using a set of 17 medication safety indicators developed by the Universities of Nottingham and Manchester. The study is designed as a natural experiment in which general practices receive the intervention at different points in time. Evaluation of the intervention will target collaboration between pharmacists and GPs, adoption and usage of the electronic dashboard, and prevalence of prescribing errors before and after the intervention. We will use qualitative research methods to investigate adoption and usage of the intervention in practice, possible reasons for its (in-)effectiveness, and to inform wider roll-out.
REC name
North West - Greater Manchester East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0792
Date of REC Opinion
24 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion