SASKATOON – Employees moved into a new state-of-the-art pharmacy at Royal University Hospital (RUH) this week.
The $4.5 million renovated facility offers more space plus equipment upgrades expected to help improve patient care and safety.
In 2010, a pharmaceutical error resulted in four infants receiving incorrect medication. TPN, which is given to patients when no other form of nourishment is possible, contained insulin rather than heparin.
One of the babies died shortly after.
At the time, the Saskatoon Health Region (SHR) said the error was not a factor in the infant’s death but did say changes were needed.
“We knew that we had an issue but I think that was the final straw when we realized no longer could we put either our staff or our patients at risk working in unsafe space,” said Maura Davies, SHR CEO.
Although plans were already in place at the time, the incident sparked quicker action in constructing the new facility, fully equipped with modern technologies which should help eliminate errors.
There are motion-activated doors and sealed sterile rooms to separate drug preparation areas.
“It allows us to separate pediatric drugs from adult drugs which are really important from a safety perspective,” said Janet Harding, the regional pharmacy services director.
A new piece of technology that excites staff probably the most is the unit dose packager. This machine can split bulk drugs into 10,000 individually wrapped tablets required by patients each day.
“It actually packages them one at a time into little packages with the name of the drug on it, it comes out here just like a vending machine,” said Harding.
The old pharmacy supplied medication to City Hospital, St. Paul’s and Humboldt district hospital.
The new facility will continue that work and has capacity to add on the needs of the future Children’s Hospital of Saskatchewan.
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