What You Should Know
About Medication Errors

What You Should Know About Medication Errors 

There is much talk about medical errors and the harm they do; the most common medical error is those involving medication errors.

Approximately 1.5 million people every year are harmed by medication errors.

Medication errors include those involving prescription drugs, over-the counter products, vitamins, and also mineral and herbal supplements.

Medication errors can occur when prescribing, dispensing or monitoring them. 

Errors involving medication do not always lead to injury or death. The drug errors that do happen and lead to harm occur not only in hospitals, but long-term care facilities and pharmacies.

It is estimated that 400,000 preventable drug-related injuries occurred each year in hospitals and 800,000 in long-term care settings with another 530,000 occurring in outpatient clinics. 

There is a financial cost related to medication error that is estimated to be about $887 million in additional medically related costs in the year 2000 and that figure did not include loss of wages or productivity. 

In order to prevent or decrease medication errors it is important that patient-provider partnerships be strengthened and that patients monitor what is being prescribed against what is being dispensed.

Medical personnel and patients should be informed regarding other medications being taken by the patient as well as drug interaction possibilities.

Computer monitoring programs that can detect drug interactions are important and should be implemented whenever possible. 

Medicine Tablets Antihistamines block receptors that trigger the itching, nasal irritation, and sneezing associated with allergies and decongestants work by narrowing the blood vessels in the lining of your nose, which shrinks swollen nasal passages. Cough medicines have two groups’ antitussives, which suppress coughs by blocking the cough reflex and expectorants, which help to bring up the mucus we have as a result of colds or flu. The thinning of the mucus makes coughing more productive and effectively clearing away mucus from our airways making it easier to breathe. Drugs and Medicine

Drug information resources should be user friendly and should discourage language barriers. 

Another issue is that of similar names for drugs, labeling and packaging solutions to discourage confusion. 

The role of the pharmacist is paramount to catching drug interactions as well as prescription errors before they reach the patient. This means that pharmacy staff should be up to date on drug information, updated drug interactions and drug knowledge. 

Patients should also be educated to detect errors by communicating with doctors as they are prescribing medications.

Medications Drugs If there is family history of medication allergies you are more likely to develop a medication allergy. Make sure you tell your pharmacist about your medication allergy. A medication allergy is caused by an over-sensitive immune system. The individual with a medication allergy has an immune system that attacks the medication as if it were a harmful substance. Drugs and Medicine

When questions are asked about drug name, dosage, and side effects; errors in dispensing are more likely to be caught at the pharmacy.

Patients should be taught how to read prescription labels so that they can verify that what is being dispensed is what they understood the prescribed medication to be. 

Medication errors sometimes stem from incomplete patient information (about allergies, and other medication being taken, lab results), lack of up-to-date drug warnings, miscommunication or misinterpretation of drug orders (poor handwriting or confusion between similar names, confusion between zeroes and decimal points, as well as difficulty using the metric system.

Sometimes inappropriate abbreviations are used, or inappropriate labeling regarding packaging, environmental factors such as lack of proper lighting, heat, noise or interruptions while filling orders or other distractions when the health professional is writing the prescription or when the pharmacist is dispensing the medication.