The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced today it honored Veterans Health Administration (VHA) National HeRO Awardee Dr. Kelsey Metts, a clinical pharmacist at the Carl Vinson VA Medical Center in Dublin, Georgia for their contributions to VHA’s Journey to High Reliability.
Dr. Metts and a colleague, David Brown, created a dashboard to screen female Veterans ages 47 years and younger, who are at risk of becoming pregnant, to ensure they are not currently prescribed teratogenic medications that could harm the embryo. With unwavering support from Women’s Health, Dr. Metts’ dashboard helped save a few pregnancies.
VHA’s enterprise-wide Journey to High Reliability aims to continuously improve processes by maximizing patient safety and reducing harm, with the overarching goal of making VHA the Safest Health Care System for All. The National HeRO Awardees were recognized for their safety efforts and process improvement initiatives to provide the best possible care to Veterans every time.
“I am immensely proud of the work Dr. Metts has accomplished,” said Manuel Davila, Medical Center Director. “Receiving a National HeRO Award means our staff members have integrated High Reliability Organization (HRO) Principles and practices into the fabric of our daily operations and culture to ensure VHA delivers the best care possible. Veterans have a champion on their side when it comes to Dr. Metts.”
All ten teams and individuals were nominated by their leadership in one of five categories: Clinical Individual from a Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) or Facility, Non-Clinical Individual from a VISN or Facility, Clinical Team from a VISN or Facility, Non-Clinical Team from a VISN or Facility, and Individual or Team from VHA Central Office.
The National HeRO Award is the highest level of HRO recognition available within VHA and is reserved to honor employees who advance VHA’s Journey to High Reliability through the demonstration of VHA’s HRO Principles in action.
Learn more about VHA’s Journey to High Reliability at VA National Center for Patient Safety.
Do you know what teratogenic prescription medications are and how it can potentially affect women’s health? Teratogenic prescriptions, such as statins and blood pressure medications (Losartin and Lisinipril), can harm a woman’s health and damage an embryo when women, 47 years old and under who are at risk of getting pregnant, take these medications.
Dr. Kelsey Metts and David Brown, along with help from Dublin VAMC’s Women’s Health Clinic, implemented a dashboard to screen women Veterans to cross reference a woman’s risk of getting pregnant and the medications she is currently prescribed. This dashboard has discovered three pregnancies and halted these potentially damaging, but quite common, prescriptions.
To schedule an interview or if you’d like more information, contact James Huckfeldt at James.Huckfeldt@VA.gov or call 478-272-1210 ext. 73531 or via mobile at 609-218-8468.
Original source can be found here.
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