Medication safety has been identified as one of the key development areas in the patient safety movement in Europe and globally. Medication errors are the most common types of errors in health care, the consequences can be severe to the patients and increase significantly the costs of health care. Several factors related to health care systems has been identified to be associated with the occurrence of medication errors. However, deficiencies on registered nurses’ medication competence has been found to be one of the contributing factors on the medication errors. Nurses need to have a solid medication competence to be able to provide safe, efficient and high quality care. However, several international studies have indicated that nurses and graduating nursing students have deficiencies in their medication competence and there is a need for developing undergraduate education. The challenge on developing nurses educational preparation is global and due to migration of nurse workforce especially important for Nordic and Baltic countries. eMed-PASS project aim is to improve the quality and relevance of higher education in bachelor level nurse education cross-borders in EU-level in the Baltic countries and Finland. The project supports objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy and EU Health Strategy Together for Health, by responding to the medication and patient safety challenges faced by member countries through strengthening the cooperation and coordination among universities and registering of nurses’ medication competence development during undergraduate education. The need for developing common education and nursing competence is evident in each of the partner countries. The project consortium consists on Tartu Health Care College (THCC, Estonia), Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS, Finland), P.Stradins Medical College of the University of Latvia, KAUNO KOLEGIJA (Lithuania). The ultimate goal of eMed-PASS project is to increase patient and medication safety by developing the educational preparation of nurses. The aim of this project is to modify, implement, and evaluate the feasibility of electronic Medication Passport for ensuring the medication competence and adequate working life skills of the graduating nurses. The evaluation includes also evaluation of the impact of eMedication Passport into development of medication competence of the students. As an outcome of the project a) shared, culturally adapted and evaluated learning tool, the eMedication Passport in use in the partner universities and university colleges, b) a model for adaption of culturally sensitive learning tool and c) a protocol for implementation of a method ensuring medication competence development in countries regulated by the EU are created. The eMedication Passport is one solution for creating common quality standards for medication competence, not only in one country, but also over the borders in the Nordic and Baltic countries. By using the tool nurse teachers, nurse mentors in clinical practice, nursing students and students’ employers are able to follow students’ medication competence development during undergraduate education. It also enhances collaboration between the clinical practice placements and universities. Modifications, developed through this project, are culturally adapted versions of the non-profit electronic learning tool. The eMedication Passport has originally been created in Finland and is currently in use in all the Finnish universities of applied sciences. The tool is unique and has potential to be internationally shared learning tool. The expected impact is improvement on nursing students’ medication competence and increased collaboration among education institution and clinical practice placements. Although medication competence is one part of nurses’ overall professional competence, it contains elements which integrate into general professional competence. By developing medication competence, the results will also reflect to other professional competencies. Non-direct impact is the development of medication education in general and potential improvement of medication safety. The proposal also demonstrates benefits of transnational and interdisciplinary cooperation which brings the partners together and supports further collaboration in Europe and globally.
Medication safety has been identified as one of the key development areas in the patient safety movement in Europe and globally. Medication errors are the most common types of errors in health care, the consequences can be a serious hazard to patients’ health and safety and increase the costs of health care significantly. Several factors related to health care systems have been identified to be associated with the occurrence of medication errors. However, deficiencies of registered nurses’ as well as graduating nurse students’ medication competence are one of the contributing factors on medication errors. Nurses need to have a solid medication competence to be able to provide safe, efficient and high-quality care. Therefore there is a need for developing undergraduate education. The challenge of developing nurses educational preparation is global, and due to the migration of the nurse workforce especially important for Nordic and Baltic countries. The eMed-PASS project aim was to improve the quality and relevance of higher education in bachelor level nurse education cross-borders in EU-level in the Baltic countries and Finland by modifying, implementing and evaluating the feasibility of portal-based digital learning tool eMedication Passport for ensuring the medication competence and adequate working life skills of the graduating nurses. The evaluation also included an evaluation of the impact of eMedication Passport into the development of medication competence of the students. As an outcome of the project a) shared, innovative culturally adapted and impact evaluated feasible learning tool - the eMedication Passport – with modifications to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania to support the development of medication competence of nursing students in the partner higher education institutions has been created and used b) a model for adaption of culturally sensitive learning tool and c) a protocol for the implementation of a method ensuring medication competence development in countries regulated by the EU has been created, d) collaboration among Baltic countries and Finland has been increased. There were 307 nurse students, 37 clinical nurse mentors, 6 nurse educators, as well as 15 persons of the expert panel and 34 head nurses involved in the project activities. The eMedication Passport is one solution for creating common quality standards for medication competence, not only in one country but also over the borders in the Nordic and Baltic countries. By using the tool nurse teachers, nurse mentors in clinical practice, nursing students and students’ employers can follow students’ medication competence development during undergraduate education. It also enhances collaboration between the clinical practice placements and higher education institutions. Modifications, developed through this project, are culturally adapted versions of the non-profit electronic learning tool. The eMedication Passport has been initially created in Finland. The tool is unique and has the potential to be internationally shared learning tool. The project supported objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy and EU Health Strategy Together for Health, by responding to the medication and patient safety challenges faced by member countries through strengthening the cooperation and coordination among universities and registering of nurses’ medication competence development during undergraduate education. The need for developing common education and nursing competence is evident in each of the partner countries. The project consortium consisted on Tartu Health Care College (THCC, Estonia), Turku University of Applied Sciences (TUAS, Finland), P.Stradins Medical College of the University of Latvia (LUPSK, Latvia), Kauno Kolegija/University of Applied Sciences (Lithuania). The impact of the project is an improvement in nursing students’ medication competence and increased collaboration among educational institutions and clinical practice placements. Although medication competence is one part of nurses’ overall professional competence, it contains elements which integrate into general professional competence. By developing medication competence, the results will also reflect on other professional competencies. Non-direct impact of the project is potential improvement of medication safety by improvement of nursing students’ medication competence and medication education in general. Also, the benefit of the project was transnational and interdisciplinary cooperation which brought the partners together and supported further collaboration in Europe and globally.