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Keywords: Clinical risk; Emergency care; Emergency nurs-ing; Medication; Medication safety

50

nd 7% required recurrent CIC activations. Bart Wunderlichs the Emergency Department Clinical Nurse Educator at Northernealth. He is currently undertaking a Master of Nursing Practice andis research interest is in quality and safety of emergency care, withparticular focus on nurses’ detection and response to hypoten-

ion. He is also the Chair of the Emergency Department Quality &isk Management Committee.

oi:10.1016/j.aenj.2010.08.295

mplementation of professional development days formergency nurses: An overwhelming positive outcome

icole Lloyd, Paul Rumpffb, Kelly Printannierb

Peninsula Health, PO Box 52, Frankston, Vic 3199, Aus-raliaCasey Hospital Southern Health, Locked Bag 3000, Hallam,ic 3803, Australia

-mail addresses: Nic lloyd72@yahoo.com.au (N. Lloyd),aul.rumpff@southernhealth.org.au (P. Rumpff),elly.printannier@southernhealth.org.au (K. Printannier).

In early 2009 Casey Emergency Department (ED) setut to improve the professional development of nursesmployed in our ED. A collaborative effort of the ED Nursenit Manager and ED Nursing Education Team resulted in the

mplementation of a single study day that has had amaz-ng results. Since mid 2009 our nurses have participated inhe Professional Development (PD) day program that hasmproved appraisal and all core competency rates to wellbove 95%. Additional benefits have encompassed both staffevelopment and improved patient outcomes. Prior to thentroduction of PD program staff accreditation rate for Sin-le Checking of Medications (SAM) was only 15%. Dedicatedaid work time to complete the process has seen SAM takeff to over 68%. Our patients are now reaping the rewards,s ED nurses are now providing more timely therapeutic par-nteral interventions. ALS accreditations have risen from7% to 94% meaning we have better skilled nurses workingt the bedside; Smart moves assessments have risen from0% to 96% equating to safer manual handling practices; andtaff appraisals which give staff a clear 12 month progressionlan have increased from 30% to 95%. The staff evaluationsf the productiveness of the PD program have been 100%ositive. Investing in our staff has seen staff retention ratesemain consistently higher than the other EDs within ouregion. This quality improvement initiative does have costsssociated with facilitating the program; however they haveeen far outweighed by the benefits of the program.

eywords: Education; Professional development; Appraisal;mergency Department; Quality improvement

oi:10.1016/j.aenj.2010.08.296

d

Conference Abstracts

edication safety in the ED

elinda Mitchell, Julie Considineb, Mari Botti c

Northern Health, 185 Cooper Street Epping, Victoria 3076,ustraliaDeakin University/Northern Health Clinical Partnership,/- School of Nursing, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Hwy,urwood, Victoria 3125, AustraliaDeakin University/Epworth HealthCare Clinical Partner-hip, c/- School of Nursing, Deakin University, 221 Burwoodwy, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia

-mail addresses: belinda.mitchell@nh.org.au (B. Mitchell),ulie.considine@deakin.edu.au (J. Considine),ari.botti@deakin.edu.au (M. Botti).

Adverse events and clinical risk are common in healthcarend are associated with increased morbidity and mortal-ty. Medication administration is a major aspect of patientare in hospitals; medication related adverse events haveeen reported to account for 10—28% of all adverse events.group at significant risk of adverse events in health care

re Emergency Department (ED) patients. EDs have the high-st incidence of preventable and negligence-related adversevents.

The sources of medication risk in emergency careill be examined using a descriptive exploratorypproach.

Data were collected using: (i) incident reports submit-ed by ED clinicians during 2009 to identify patient, humannd system factors which are present in reported medi-ation adverse events and (ii) point prevalence surveys todentify the prevalence of medication errors. Preliminaryata analysis from the medication point prevalence surveysndicates there are a number of issues related to medi-ation safety in the ED. Many patients were identified aseing at risk of a medication adverse event because ofailures to correctly identify patients: 43.1% of patientsad no ID band, 40.4% of patients did not have an allergyand despite having known allergies documented, 38.1% ofatients had medications ordered but not administered and.4% of patients were at risk because of duplicate drugrders. The results of data analysis will be presented in thisaper.

This study was undertaken as part of a Masters of NursingDeakin University and funded by a Northern Health Small

esearch Grant.

oi:10.1016/j.aenj.2010.08.297