The Reasons for Common Medication Errors

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Discussion
Conclusion
Reference

Introduction

Medication errors are mistakes that lead to slower healing of patients, sometimes causing harm or even death. This is why avoiding medication errors and reducing their rates as much as possible is a topic and a quite pressuring one. There is much research conducted in attempts to clarify what are the reasons for common medication errors and what are the most effective ways of avoiding them.

Discussion

The rates of medication errors are higher than one might expect. Approximately one-fourth of all healthcare errors are medication errors (Manias et al., 2020). Understanding the strategies that can reduce this number requires massive and thorough research. Manias et al. (2020) analyzed 34 articles to identify the most successful patterns of medication error prevention. The study only included works researching ways to lower the medication error rates in institutions treating adults.

The researchers distinguished three different types of medication error: prescribing, medication administration, and dispensing. They found that none of the analyzed studies had a real strategy to deal with dispensing errors effectively. However, to fight the rest of the problems, Manias et al. identified concrete strategies and guidelines. They do not decrease the medication error rates to zero but decrease them significantly. The study detects the most successful strategies for both prescribing and administration errors.

In dealing with prescribing errors, such strategies as pharmacist-led medication reconciliation, computerized medication reconciliation, pharmacist partnership, prescriber education, medication reconciliation by trained mentors, and CPOE were successful (Manias et al., 2020). For example, two out of three studies that used pharmacist-led medication reconciliation showed a significant reduction in errors. Pharmacist partnerships lowered the error rate from 47.7% to 17.3%. Despite proving less effective than the previous strategies, computerized medication reconciliation still showed some error rate drop. CPOE and the usage of an automated drug distribution system allowed to reduce medication administration errors (Manias et al., 2020). In one study, the usage of an automated drug distribution system reduced administration errors to 16 out of 405. All five studies using CPOE reported a significant reduction in medication error rates. Combined interventions showed good results in preventing both prescribing and medication administration errors.

Conclusion

To conclude, the utilizes data from multiple databases and libraries to evaluate the effectiveness of different ways of preventing medication errors. The researchers assess 12 different strategies concerning three possible kinds of medication errors. Despite the undoubtful usefulness of this data, the topic requires further research that will allow continuing to lower the medication error rates because it remains an important issue to this day.

Reference

Manias, E., Kusljic, S. & Wu, A. (2020). Interventions to reduce medication errors in adult medical and surgical settings: a systematic review. Therapeutic Advances in Drug Safety. 11, 1-29.

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The Reasons for Common Medication Errors

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