The scorecard chosen for review is the one used in the Intensive Care Unit of the Miami University hospital. This scorecard is employed to evaluate the medication safety in the unit by assessing the overall process of medication distribution and access, as well as the rates of patients who are administered controlled substances. Specific measures include the number of patients with dated/signed allergy documentation, evaluation of the number of drugs in their POD lockers, drug omissions rate, overall security of the drug storage and access to it. Moreover, the scorecard also provides the information on the rates of patients who are prescribed trigger drugs such as Naloxone, Flumenazil, Glucagon, and others. It is quite effective in achieving safety goals of the hospital, as it specifically targets the drug storage and admission security issues and access to controlled substances like Morphine, Codeine, and Diazepam. It offers short and concise assessment aims that can be easily followed by doctors, nurses, or any administrative personnel. With this scorecard, the medication safety of the hospital’s intensive care unit can be evaluated in a quick and efficient way.
Balanced scorecards are extremely important for the assessment of performance of any healthcare organization or department. According to Abu Jaber and Nashwan (2022), “the balanced scorecard is considered one of the most influential contributions in the performance measurement literature to enable hospital performance improvement” (p. 1). Specific performance indicators provided by the medication safety scorecard of the Miami University Hospital are extensive to provide the best analysis of the issue. The collective of measures presented in this scorecard is rather comprehensive and offers a well-designed evaluation means. It simultaneously assesses not only the overall drug safety in the ICU but also determines patient-related rates that can be used later for determining the patient need for controlled substances and employees’ adherence to guidelines. Bohm et al. (2020) emphasize that “balanced scorecard frameworks frequently undergo adaptation from the original description in order to suit a specific healthcare context” (p. 1). Seeing as the scorecard already evaluates performance of a wide variety of medication-related tasks, I do not think it needs any new measures added to it.
The scorecard:
References
Abu Jaber, A. A., & Nashwan, A. (2022). Balanced scorecard-based hospital performance measurement framework: A performance construct development approach. Cureus.
Bohm, V., Lacaille, D., Spencer, N., & Barber, C. E. H. (2021). Scoping review of balanced scorecards for use in healthcare settings: Development and implementation. BMJ Open Quality, 10(3).