Ohio Health Plan Promotes Safer Medication Practices With AHRQ Brochures
SummaCare, Inc., an Ohio-based health plan, has implemented a program to promote safer medication practices. One of several interventions in the program, AHRQ's 20 Tips to Help Prevent Medical Errors Fact Sheet was reprinted in the winter 2004 edition of SummaCare's commercial and Medicaid member newsletters. Earlier SummaCare editions contained reprints of AHRQ's Five Steps to Safer Health Care and 12 Tips to Prevent Medical Errors.
Several interventions, including the AHRQ publications, were implemented simultaneously to promote safe medication practices, and the overall effort to improve patient health is promising, according to Wayne Cermak, Director of Quality Management at SummaCare. "I feel that by improving patient and physician awareness of medication errors, they can be reduced," he says.
SummaCare is based in Akron, Ohio. It serves members in a 13-county area in northeastern Ohio through a network of over 5,000 providers and 28 hospitals.