NIMC - charts and guidelines
Charts
There are currently two versions of the NIMC in use in the Western Australian public hospital system.
- Version A (PDF 1.83MB) – allows for Warfarin orders to be written within the Warfarin section.
- Version B (PDF 1.77MB) – allows health services to use a specialised anticoagulation medication chart.
To reduce the potential for medication error, ONLY ONE VERSION OF THE CHART IS TO BE USED AT EACH HEALTH SERVICE. A WA Anticoagulation Chart is being developed and piloted by the WA Medication Safety Group. Once this chart is implemented across all WA public hospitals, the NIMC will be revised, and only one version will be in use across WA.
Guidelines for the use of the NIMC
Changing the chart
Under the direction of the Australian Commission of Safety and Quality on Health Care, an NIMC National Oversight Committee has been established to provide national leadership for the NIMC. The Oversight Committee is responsible for maintaining the standardisation of the NIMC across Australia and for considering proposals from States/Territories and hospitals to change the chart.
The NIMC Oversight Committee has developed National Guidelines (PDF) outlining changes to the National Inpatient Medication Chart (NIMC) which can be authorised at State and Territory levels.
The NIMC has been adapted to reflect local needs in terms of the logo, administration times, number of days, inclusion of a bar code and colour of sections. However, in order to maintain the standard safety components and adhere to the underlying principle of national standardisation to optimise patient safety, other sections of the chart are not to be changed without approval of the Office of Safety and Quality in Healthcare.
All major changes to the NIMC need endorsement from the NIMC Oversight Committee. Recommendations for change to the NIMC should be lodged via the OSQH Change Register. Recommendations for change must be evidence based, with the primary objective of improving patient safety.
See also
» Background
» Change register
» Resources
» Audits and evalution
File Formats
Some documents for download on this website are in a Portable Document Format (PDF). To read these files you might need to download Adobe® Acrobat Reader.