The recent Future Health Summit 2026, where international healthcare leaders gathered to discuss the future of patient safety, AI and digital transformation, raised some key highlights in terms of medication safety.
Vanessa Hennes, Senior Clinical Consultant at Nordic Consulting Europe, argued that Ireland has reached a defining moment in medication safety reform, with medication-related harm now responsible for around 50 per cent of preventable harm globally. The keynote outlined how digitally connected ‘closed-loop’ medication management systems could significantly reduce errors, improve clinical outcomes and accelerate safer care delivery across Irish hospitals.
Key highlights included:
Ireland’s health system recorded more than 10,400 medication-related incidents in 2025, with the argument that a ‘closed loop’ medication management model could reduce errors by 45-to-77 per cent.
Speakers from UPMC Ireland and Nordic Consulting positioned medication safety as one of the most urgent patient safety issues facing Irish healthcare, citing WHO data that medication-related harm accounts for around half of preventable healthcare harm globally.
The proposed ‘closed loop’ model integrates electronic prescribing, pharmacy verification, automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs), bedside medication verification (BMV), barcode scanning, eMAR systems and clinical decision support (CDS) into a single digital workflow.
The presentation highlighted significant potential safety gains from digital medication management:
- BMV systems linked to barcode medication administration can reduce medication administration errors by 41 per cent and potential adverse drug events by 51 per cent.
- Automated dispensing cabinets may reduce dispensing errors by up to 70-to- 75 per cent.
- Advanced clinical decision support systems can cut prescribing-related medication errors by roughly 50 per cent.
Ireland’s current barriers include fragmented digital infrastructure, limited pharmacy support, lack of integrated EHRs, and EU packaging regulations that require hospitals to repackage many medicines into barcode-enabled unit doses before bedside scanning can work effectively, said speakers.
The speakers also argued that technology alone will not solve medication safety challenges; workforce reform is also required, with expanded clinical roles for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in medication reconciliation, governance and real-time intervention.
Ireland’s evolving regulatory framework was presented as a key enabler, particularly the expansion of pharmacist prescribing powers under the Common Conditions Service, which is viewed as a template for broader collaborative pharmacy practice in hospitals.
A central message for policymakers and hospital leaders was that Ireland now has an opportunity to build safer medication systems “deliberately” as acute hospital digital maturity increases, combining technology investment, pharmacy workforce expansion and regulatory reform, it was argued.
