Establishment of an Electronic Medication Management Application in a Pediatric Surgery Department

Mobile health (mHealth) refers to digital health technologies via mobile phones, tablets, and other electronic devices to enhance health outcomes. mHealth has started to have an impact on many health care and medical education aspects. With the increased number of smartphones and increasing interest in using mobile applications (apps), healthcare related mobile apps offer opportunities for advanced patient care allowing for better patient-provider communication. Within anesthesia, mobile apps were developed to play an important role; pre, intra- and postoperatively through providing patient-physician communication, reducing patient anxiety, and offering on-the-go education.

The development of medical mobile app is challenging. It incorporates producing an easy-to-use display with appropriate clinical information. Although many medication errors lead to little or no harm, some have overwhelming consequences for patients and, sometimes, for practitioners.

In pediatric patients, doses of anesthetics and other medications are calculated based on age and/or weight. Also, preparations often require further dilutions, specifically for younger patients like neonates and infants. These steps might increase risk for medication errors in pediatric anesthesia. For pediatric patients, it is important to use appropriate weight-based medication doses.

Anesthetics, Antimicrobials and Analgesics are the three drug classes that have shown the highest number of medication errors in the operating rooms of a pediatric surgery department. To provide an appropriate age and/or weight-based drug information, we will develop an electronic application to recommend the most appropriate drugs based on international guidelines and calculate doses for Anesthetics, Antimicrobials and Analgesics for pediatric patients in the operating rooms of a pediatric surgery department.

Aim of the study: