Using league tables to reduce missed dose medication errors on mental healthcare of older people wards

The unintentional omission of medication is one of the most commonly-reported administration errors on hospital wards throughout the world. The omission of a dose of medication can severely harm the patient affected, but to date there is limited evidence about cost-effective means for reducing the incidence of such errors. The current report describes a quality improvement project, conducted on the mental healthcare of older people (MHCOP) wards in East London NHS Foundation Trust, which led to a greater than 90% reduction in the rate of unintentionally omitted doses of medication. The project involved the publication of a fortnightly league table which ranked each of the wards by how many doses they had missed, with the ward missing the fewest doses receiving a prize. PDSA cycles were used to refine the concept, with the final incarnation of the fortnightly league table also incorporating the publication of a poster for each ward which showed how many weeks it had been since the ward missed a dose, and the ward's overall trend in missed doses. The project has resulted in the average missed dose rate on the MCHOP wards decreasing from 1.07% to 0.07%. In real terms, this represents a reduction from an estimated 2878 to 188 missed doses per year on the six MHCOP wards. By greatly reducing the risk of patients experiencing adverse drug events as a result of missed doses, this project has given rise to a potential cost-saving of around £34,000 per year across the wards studied. The use of league tables represents a simple, cost-effective means of tackling the problem of doses of medication being unintentionally omitted on hospital wards.