Dr. Tim Vanderveen Blogs About Emily Jerry Foundation at Institute for Safe Medication Practices CHEERS Awards Dinner

An awesome blog post by Dr. Tim Vanderveen of CareFusion. I had the pleasure of meeting Tim after the ISMP speech and it was a great experience. We hope to team up early next year on an exciting webcast. As always, I’ll keep you updated via our website. Now without further ado, here is Tim’s blog posting…

Monday, December 12, 2011
A tipping point for preventing IV compounding errors
Dr. Tim Vanderveen – Vice President, Center for Safety and Clinical Excellence, CareFusion

Last week, I attended the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) Midyear Annual Meeting in New Orleans. While there, I attended the Institute for Safe Medication Practices (ISMP) CHEERS awards dinner – an annual event to honor individuals, hospitals and companies who have made a difference in patient safety. The dinner event included a speaker, Christopher Jerry, who came to tell the story of his daughter, Emily, a victim of a fatal IV chemotherapy compounding error. Emily was receiving her last round of chemo when the pharmacy technician used 24% saline to compound Emily’s chemo dose instead of the 0.9% saline that was ordered. In an earlier blog, I discussed the second victim of a medication error – the clinician. Eric Cropp, the pharmacist who checked Emily’s chemo dose faced criminal charges and served a six-month jail sentence followed by six-months of house arrest. Partnering with ISMP, the CareFusion Center for Safety and Clinical Excellence hosted a recent webcast that discussed the error and Eric’s experience during his jail sentence.

Read More at CareFusion.com