Staff at Evergreen House step happily into the MUD
Before the new Multi Unit Dose, or MUD, medication delivery system went live at Evergreen House last week, pharmacy technician Karen Callaway spent a large part of her day verifying the traditional 35-day blister cards for the 288 patients at the North Shore residential care facility.
“We were living in the dark ages over here,” says Karen with a laugh. “The old system was very time consuming. MUD is a lot more efficient and safer.”
With the new system, regularly scheduled oral solid medication is pre-packaged at the Vancouver Pharmacy Production Centre (VPCC) in multi-dose packets in a strip and sent to EGH on a daily basis. Each package displays the resident’s name, room number, dose, time and date and is stored in locked cabinets.
Although just a couple of days into the new MUD system, Felicia Hogarthe, LPN, one 1 North at EGH, is happy with the switch.
‘Straightforward and easy’
Staff received six weeks of incremental education to prepare for the MUD launch last Tuesday that included an education binder in every medication cart, which also contained medication pouch samples, resources and user-friendly algorithms. Regular nursing huddles were also held and led in turn by EGH MUD team leaders to ensure success.
“I like it so far,” says Felicia. “It’s very straightforward and easy. I have had no troubles with it.”
Resident Care Coordinate Atoussa Elahi agrees. She says staff are pleased with the switch.
“It took a lot of education and lot of support from pharmacy, who were great in explaining and answering questions,” says Atoussa. “It was excellent team work all around.”
In the moment mentoring
On GoLive day and several days afterward, pharmacy leaders and nursing leaders were making regular rounds providing “in the moment mentoring.”
By 11 a.m. on launch day, staff reported to Karen that the MUD launch was unfolding smoothly.
“There was a lot of positive buzz,” says Karen.
Evergreen House is one of the last VCH residential care sites to switch from blister cards to MUD.