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Researchers at SFU and UBC are working to reduce adverse drug events (ADEs), the harmful and unintended consequences of medication that send two million Canadians to visit emergency departments every year. They鈥檝e created software called ActionADE to document ADES and communicate with pharmacies to help prevent re-dispensing drugs that have led to patient harm.

SFU professor Ellen Balka and UBC professor Corinne Hohl spent a decade of research on developing the technology, including extensive privacy and ethics reviews and pilot testing. ActionADE is now being implemented in nine Lower Mainland hospitals with more sites to come.

 a professor in SFU鈥檚 School of Communication and , an associate professor in UBC鈥檚 Department of Emergency Medicine, and emergency department physician, conceived ActionADE while collaborating on ways to improve information sharing in B.C.鈥檚 health care system. The research has been based at Vancouver General Hospital鈥檚 Centre for Clinical Epidemiology and Evaluation Studies. 

鈥淚n medication safety, people have focused their attention on other problems,鈥� says Balka. 鈥淔or example, preventing drug-to-drug interactions or getting the right medication to the right person in a hospital by barcoding medications. It turns out that those interventions are only responsible for preventing a very small proportion of adverse drug events.鈥� 

Despite the recent federal Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act (also known as Vanessa鈥檚 Law), which mandates serious adverse drug reaction reporting, the researchers say that less than five per cent of these reactions are being reported. 

 found that at least one-third of ADEs are repeat events that occur when an ADE is documented at the hospital, but that information isn鈥檛 shared with the prescriber or pharmacies, resulting in a preventable, repeat ADE.  

鈥淭he implementation of this software into clinical care here in B.C. represents a tremendous step forward, helping to improve communication and ultimately reduce adverse drug events for patients,鈥� says Hohl. 

Researchers collaborated with healthcare professionals, government, and patients and studied how healthcare workers use existing databases. SFU engineering alumnus 

The researchers鈥� main challenge was to ensure that ActionADE software would be compatible and integrate with multiple health authorities鈥� myriad software systems and databases, while also integrating with PharmaNet, the network that connects all B.C. pharmacies to a central data system and includes information about all dispensed prescriptions.

鈥淭his work is really impactful, as we've managed to change provincial and health authority computer systems to improve research data collection, as well as quality of care,鈥� says Balka,鈥淲e鈥檙e the first group that has managed to influence the direction of PharmaNet. Before this, the only data getting pushed to PharmaNet from acute care sites was medication and billing data, and, occasionally, information about a drug allergy from community pharmacists. Now we've created a mechanism for a two-way flow of ADE information between hospital sites and PharmaNet.鈥�

A randomized control trial was recently launched by the researchers to assess improved health outcomes and associated cost savings resulting from prevention of repeat ADEs. 

In addition to its use in hospitals, two pharmacy software providers with significant market share in BC have altered their software to display ADE information they receive through PharmaNet, and a third system is expected to follow shortly.

鈥淚t takes very little time to document an adverse drug event,鈥� says Balka, 鈥渁nd as a result of this software, the number of documented adverse drug events has gone up. You can't prevent them if you're not documenting them.鈥� 

Funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, Vancouver Coastal Health and BC鈥檚 Ministry of Health has supported the research.   

AVAILABLE SFU EXPERTS

ELLEN BALKA, professor, School of Communication                     
 ellenb@sfu.ca

CORINNE HOHL,  associate professor, Department of Emergency Medicine        corinne.hohl@ubc.ca

CONTACT 

MELISSA SHAW, SFU  Communications & Marketing 
236.880.3297 | melissa_shaw@sfu.ca

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778.782.3210

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As Canada鈥檚 engaged university, SFU works with communities, organizations and partners to create, share and embrace knowledge that improves life and generates real change. We deliver a world-class education with lifelong value that shapes change-makers, visionaries and problem-solvers. We connect research and innovation to entrepreneurship and industry to deliver sustainable, relevant solutions to today鈥檚 problems. With campuses in British Columbia鈥檚 three largest cities鈥擵ancouver, Burnaby and Surrey鈥擲FU has eight faculties that deliver 193 undergraduate degree programs and 127 graduate degree programs to more than 37,000 students. The university now boasts more than 165,000 alumni residing in 143 countries.