Meeting Joint Commission Standards for Drug/Food Interactions Utilizing Computers and Existing Personnel

Abstract

LEARNING OUTCOME: To recognized how computer automation can be used to efficiently add new programs related to clinical nutrition management.Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) standards state that patients must be provided with instruction on potential drug/food interactions so that they can meet their ongoing health care needs. The major goals of a drug/food interaction program are to inform the patient of potential interactions and to educate them in how to adjust their food intake to prevent them. In today's health care environment, this needs to be accomplished efficiently using as few resources as possible. At a large tertiary care hospital, Pharmacy and Food and Nutrition Services (FANS) identified 16 drugs in which efficacy could be moderately or severely affected by food. The Pharmacist wrote a description of each drug and its interaction with food. The Registered Dietitian (RD) composed the dietary guidelines to assist the patient in preventing an interaction. The FANS network administrator designed a computer program that identifies patients receiving one of the key drugs and automatically prints all material needed to comply with the JCAHO standards. Education sheets specific to each drug combine the pharmacist's description and the RD's guidelines. These are printed with the patient's name and location at the top for ease of delivery. Medical record documentation (MRD) is generated that contains all of the necessary information specific to the drug and the patient except the clinician's signature. The RD Assistant gives the education sheets to the patients when making menu rounds, then signs and drops the MRD in the “to be filed” basket on each patient care area. This efficient use of resources and computer automation has enabled FANS to give instructions and to complete the MRD regarding drug/food interactions for 50 patients daily in just 3 hours.