SOS Rx

Clearinghouse of Safe Practices in High-Risk Situations

Work Plan

April 7, 2004

Objective: To develop a clearinghouse of safe practices for high-risk situations regarding outpatient medications.

Summary: This project will develop a clearinghouse of safe practices for high-risk situations in the outpatient setting. The clearinghouse would include past practices currently housed in different places. The clearinghouse will be a comprehensive dynamic resource to which healthcare professionals can turn for guidance on safe practices when prescribing medications. The first phase of this project convened an expert panel to define the scope of this project.

The expert panel met on March 31, 2004 in Washington, DC and looked at the following issues:

1) Define the scope of the clearinghouse:

- Identify what are safe practices, or the criteria for including a “safe practice”

- Determine how much of clearinghouse will be passive or active, or how much of the clearinghouse will lead to dissemination of the best practices

- Opportunity to provide a consumer translation of guidelines

2) Define operational model of the clearinghouse – private, public, or a partnership of public/private. Develop criteria for operational competence to house such a clearinghouse.

3) Governance model – who will oversee the clearinghouse.

4) Coordination and integration with any other similar efforts in the patient safety arena.

5) Develop a budget and potential funding sources

6) Develop the outline of a project that may be used for an RFP for housing the clearinghouse

Point Person for this project is Lou Diamond, Medstat.

Budget: SOS Rx has initial funding from Express Scripts to host expert meetings, to hold focus groups, and initial funding for consumer education outreach. NCL is seeking additional funding for SOS Rx projects.

Initial Timeline:

January – March

Identify who should be on panel

Establish meeting time and place for expert panel

Determine materials to distribute to expert panel before meeting in order to have a productive meeting

Invite participants to meeting

Late March - hold expert panel meeting

April 7 – Report to full coalition the progress

May – Draft report of meeting

March 31, 2004 Panel Participants

1) Jeremy Grimshaw, Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organization of Care (EPOC) Group

2) Kathryn M. McDonald, MM, Associate Director, Stanford-USCF Evidence-based Practice Center

3) Jean Slutsky, AHRQ

4) Linda Golodner, NCL

5) Helen Wu, National Quality Forum representative

6) Francesca Cunningham, Veterans Administration

7) Allen Vaida, Institute for Safe Medication Practices

8) William Sullivan, CMS

9) Laurie Feinberg, CMS

10) Paula Griswold, Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors

11) Mary Jo Goolsby, American Academy of Nurse Practitioners

12) Nancy Ostrove, FDA

13) Susan Raetzman, AARP

14) Lou Diamond, Medstat