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Welcome to the NSW TAG SAFER Medicines Group Web page. Our goal is to improve patient safety by enhancing medication safety in NSW hospitals and the wider community.
Membership
The Safer Medicines Group is a multidisciplinary team of health professionals and consumers: 2006 Membership List.
Resources
Guidance About Use of Abbreviations
The NSW TAG Safer Medicines Group has prepared a guidance document which provides recommendations for terminology, abbreviations and symbols used in prescribing and administration of medicines. Please click here to download the document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Please click here to read answers to questions received by NSW TAG related to the abbreviations guidance document.
Analgesic Skin Patches
A Safety Alert has been prepared on the use of analgesic skin patches, based on a number of safety warnings issued following reports of deaths and serious side effects in patients using fentanyl skin patches.
Intravenous Potassium Chloride
Please click here to access the current list of potassium chloride policies that have been submitted to NSW TAG.
Medication Incidents and IIMS
NSW TAG's Safer Medicines Group has prepared some advice on reports of medication incidents and IIMS, based on member requests, and therefore not exhaustive. Click the following link to acccess Medication Incident Reports and IIMS.
Hospitals may consider drafting local business rules for notifiers to follow when entering medicaiton incidents into IIMs (if they haven't already done so). This will ensure data quality so that meaningful reports can be produced from IIMS. The following document has been produced by the Pharmacy Department at Royal North Shore Hospital and may be used to assist with local policy development in this area.
Business Rules for Medication Incident Notification (RNSH 2005)
JPPR Medication Safety Series: Now on-line
The Medication Safety series published in the Journal of Pharmacy Practice and Research (journal of the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia) is now available to all comers. Please note a new warning relating to fentanyl patches.
Safety and Quality Council
Medication Alert 1, October 2003: Potassium Chloride
Change Management Strategies and Other Tools for implementation of recommendations in the potassium chloride alert (you will need to scroll down to these)
NSW Health Safety Advocate and other Safety Management publications
Link to Useful Australian and International Sites
NSW TAG SAFER Medicines Group Medication Safety Activities.
NSW TAG SAFER Medicines Newsletters
No 1 February 27 2004
No 2 April 30 2004
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