First DataBank Europe (FDBE) in association with The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP) and the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) announced the 2009 FDBE/GHP/UKCPA Information Technology Award. The aim of the annual award, which is in its seventh year, is to encourage, support and promote information technology initiatives and best practice in the use of IT in hospital pharmacy. In particular, initiatives are sought where IT has made a positive difference to the provision of pharmaceutical services or resulted in direct benefit to the patients or staff. The award, sponsored by FDBE and aimed at pharmacy departments and individuals, is for the sum of two thousand five hundred pounds.
Projects may be related to patient care, clinical services, medicines management, decision support, electronic prescribing, or any other IT application that improves pharmaceutical services. This year's award has been won by the Pharmacy Department at the Northumbria Healthcare NHS Trust. The project team was commended for successfully developing a Medicines Management e learning package, accessible and relevant to all staff involved in the medicines management process across all knowledge levels and staff groups.
Last year's winner was the University College London Hospitals NHS Trust which created a solution which used IT to manage and electronically store information about clinical trials taking place within the trust. In 2006 the Queens Medical Centre Pharmacy Department who won the award for its development of a networked IT system to improve the on-call pharmacy service.
Neil Kirby, Member of the IT Interest Group enthused said, "We are delighted that FDBE has chosen to continue to support this award. The entries we have received over the last six years have been of a very high standard and have demonstrated the positive impact that IT can have upon the way pharmacists work and the way in which services are delivered. We hope that this award will continue to highlight some of the most successful projects and inspire others in the use of information technology."
The deadline for entries is Wednesday 31 December 2008 and the award will be presented in the spring of 2009. To apply please see the 2009 award leaflet available soon via the awards pages at www.ukcpa.org or www.ghp.org.uk.
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- First DataBank's Profile
About First DataBank Europe
First DataBank Europe (FDBE) is the UK's leading provider of drug knowledge bases and active clinical decision support software. Through the effective implementation of our products, we enable safer prescribing and dispensing at the point of care. NHS Connecting for Health has chosen FDBE to provide drug-related clinical decision support.
Patient safety is the driving force behind our business. With over 25 years' experience of maintaining, developing and implementing drug knowledge bases across the entire healthcare spectrum, FDBE has unrivalled expertise and knowledge in the field of clinical decision support. Our Multilex Drug Data File - the UK's most comprehensive and widely used drug knowledge base is in daily use by thousands of healthcare professionals in the UK.
Working closely with a wide range of leading system suppliers to integrate our products into clinical systems across primary care, secondary care, community pharmacy and other healthcare environments, FDBE delivers real patient safety benefits.
For further information visit www.firstdatabank.co.uk.