Medication Errors

Introduction

The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as “any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm while the medication is in the control of the health care professional, patient, or consumer.”1 These errors often occur as a result of problems associated with prescribing, communicating, labeling, and therapy monitoring. Medication errors can cause unwanted adverse drug events and in some cases can lead to life-threatening injuries.2 Additionally, medication errors are associated with a substantial increase of total health care cost in the United States; drug-related morbidity and mortality costs are estimated to be over $177.4 billion.3 In most cases, fatal errors are the result of dispensing either an incorrect medication or dose.4 Interestingly, findings in the United Kingdom similarly show incorrect medication selection during data entry as responsible for a majority of errors.5 While some of the errors clearly originate before the prescription reaches the pharmacist, pharmacy workload concerns can contribute to the errors rates.6 Reduced staff-ing has been shown to have an adverse impact on the ability of pharmacy staff to identify drug-drug interactions. This study was initiated to determine the incidence and contributing factors for errors that have been reported from community pharmacy settings to the New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy (NHBOP). Quality Related Event Report (QRER) by the pharmacist who discovered and/or witnessed or was directly involved in the incident.

1 2 3 4