Risks and medication errors analysis to evaluate the impact of a chemotherapy compounding workflow management system on cancer patients’ safety

A failure modes, effects and criticality analysis was supported by an observational medication error rate study to analyze the impact of Phocus Rx®, a new image-based workflow software system, on chemotherapy compounding error rates. Residual risks that should be a target for additional action were identified and prioritized and pharmacy staff satisfaction with the new system was evaluated. In total, 16 potential failure modes were recognized in the pre-implementation phase and 21 after Phocus Rx® implementation. The total reduction of the criticality index was 67 percent, with a reduction of 46 percent in material preparation, 76 percent in drug production and 48 percent in quality control subprocesses. The relative risk reduction of compounding error rate was 63 percent after the implementation of Phocus Rx®, from 0.045 to 0.017 percent. The high-priority recommendations defined were identification of the product with batch and expiration date from scanned bidimensional barcodes on drug vials and process improvements in image-based quality control. Overall satisfaction index was 8.30 (SD 1.06) for technicians and 8.56 (SD 1.42) for pharmacists (p = 0.655). The introduction of a new workflow management software system was an effective approach to increasing safety in the compounding procedures in the pharmacy department, according to the failure modes, effects and criticality analysis method.