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HELSEVEL-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester

Electronic Medicines Management (eMM) - a comparative case study promoting coherent health and welfare services

Alternative title: Elektronisk legemiddelhåndtering for å fremme helhetlige helse- og velferdstjenester

Awarded: NOK 12.3 mill.

Medicines are vital for supporting health and well-being, yet they are often used neither optimally nor safely. Medicine errors are a serious threat to patient safety and a significant health problem, making them a key societal challenge. With the rise of eHealth comes new opportunities to manage the challenges related to medicine errors. However, we lack sufficient knowledge about medicines management and digitalisation. At present, multiple electronic information systems, diverse work practices and the pervasive silo mentality between primary and specialist healthcare complicate medicines management. The eMM study will generate new knowledge on how medicines management is performed and governed and how supportive digital technologies are developed, implemented, used, or not used. The research design includes comparative case studies, and the data will be collected via policy documents, observation, and interviews. We will a) map the digital technologies for eMM in Norway and explore to what extent they support the overall medicines management loop, b) examine the work and the workforce required to deliver eMM and c) analyse the impact of digital technologies on organisational integration. We have strategically selected two research sites that each have a new hospital under construction and have each shown a strong commitment towards excellent medicines management. By bringing together researchers, decision makers and service providers from the hospitals and their collaborating municipal and private institutions in a community of research and practice, our ambition is to ensure that our research has applicable value. The eMM project will contribute to the development of new and coherent services for digital medicines management at the selected sites and clarify how eMM makes a positive contribution to coherent health and welfare services for the future.

Medicines are vital for supporting health and well-being, yet they are often used neither optimally nor safely. Medicine errors are a serious threat to patient safety and a significant health problem, making them a key societal challenge. With the rise of eHealth comes new opportunities to manage the challenges related to medicine errors. However, we lack sufficient knowledge about medicines management and digitalisation. At present, multiple electronic information systems, diverse work practices and the pervasive silo mentality between primary and specialist healthcare complicate medicines management. Our objective is to generate new and aggregated knowledge on how medicines management is performed and governed and how supportive digital technologies for this are developed, implemented, used, or not used. The research design includes comparative mixed-method ethnographic case studies, and the data will be collected via policy documents, observation, interviews and focus groups. We will a) map the digital technologies for eMM in Norway and explore to what extent they support the overall medicines management loop, b) examine the work and the workforce required to deliver eMM and c) analyse the impact of digital technologies on organisational integration. We have strategically selected two research sites that each have a new hospital under construction and have each shown a strong commitment towards excellent medicines management. By bringing together researchers, decision makers and service providers from the hospitals and their collaborating municipal and private institutions in a community of research and practice, our ambition is to ensure that our research has applicable value. The eMM project will contribute to the development of new and coherent services for digital medicines management at the selected sites and clarify how eMM makes a positive contribution to coherent health and welfare services for the future.

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HELSEVEL-Gode og effektive helse-, omsorgs- og velferdstjenester