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Pharmacy group presents award
The Hematology/Oncology Pharmacy Association (HOPA) presented Kerry Parsons, BCOP, PharmD, with the 2013 HOPA Research Award.
The association provides support, through its research fund, to underwrite projects that are likely to result in facilitating the efforts of hematology/oncology pharmacists to optimize the care of individuals affected by cancer.
Parsons, a pediatric hematology/oncology pharmacist at Children’s of Alabama, is conducting a study that focuses on the identification and limitation of pediatric chemotherapy errors associated with the transition to computerized provider order entry.
“Medication errors can occur in all treatment settings, but our responsibility is to do all that is humanly possible to limit errors,” Raymond Watts, MD, professor of pediatrics at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and director of the Alabama Center for Childhood Cancer and Blood Disorders at Children’s of Alabama, said in a press release. “ Our goal remains zero errors. We have made great strides and the HOPA Research Award to Kerry should allow further improvement and greater safety for the children we treat.”
The $25,000 grant award will help Parsons research methods to improve the chemotherapy error reduction process and validate the necessity of hematology/oncology pharmacists’ participation in this transition.