Safe Pharmacotherapy

National Guide for Pharmacotherapy in Social and Health Care STM Publications 2009:10

With the expanded possibilities of pharmacotherapy and the more frequent use of medicines attention is today increasingly paid to the safety of pharmacotherapy. According to studies, about one patient in ten experiences an adverse event related to treatment during a period of treatment, a greater part of which are associated with pharmacotherapy.

The purpose of the Safe Pharmacotherapy handbook is to make the principles of pharmacotherapy provision uniform and to clarify the division of related responsibilities. The general instructions and principles regarding pharmacotherapy are the same for all public and private health and social care establishments and other providers of pharmacotherapy. The licensed health care professionals with training in pharmacotherapy bear the overall responsibility for the provision of pharmacotherapy, and every person providing or taking part in the provision of pharmacotherapy is responsible for his or her work.

The handbook stresses the need to develop the attitudes and operational culture so that errors and near misses will be learned from and the methods of operation adjusted accordingly. For that purpose the handbook offers as new practical tools a pharmacotherapy plan and a notification of pharmaceutical error.