Ensuring safety by digitally linking prescription management to blood monitoring

Monitoring people who are on disease modifying drugs (DMDs) is paramount to providing safe, high-quality MS care.

But it’s not always easy. The infrastructure isn’t widely in place and many services track patients using paper records or spreadsheets which can’t be accessed by everyone involved in a patient’s care.

As Ben Dorward, lead neurosciences pharmacist at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, has shown, joined-up working, utilising technology and more than a little persistence can help.

His project, to jointly develop an IT system that links prescription management to blood monitoring and can be accessed by the MS and pharmacy teams, was shortlisted for the Quality in the Delivery of Services (QuDoS) in Multiple Sclerosis recognition programme