Patient Safety in the Medical Environment
Medicines cure various infectious conditions, avert chronic diseases issues, and alleviate pain. However, an incorrect dosage and usage of drugs could invite negative effects. Errors from incorrect medicine usage are unavoidable and can happen at home, doctor's place, pharmacies, or even at hospitals. Such erroneous activities are one of the prime triggers behind paediatric patients experiencing iatrogenic injuries. Triggers of such medication errors, as put forward by studies, include lack of adequate knowledge, work pressure, lack of awareness that such errors exist, and insufficient training. Avoiding such errors is a clinical and government necessity. Some strategies that have been employed to lower recurrences of such errors include better input from clinical pharmacists, changes in system by using critical incident analysis and using information technology (Simpson, Lynch, Grant, & Alroomi, 2004). This paper looks into two major healthcare system failures, how to lower and avoid recurrences and suggestions to avoid recurrences.
Insufficient Drug Information Medication Error
According to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error and Prevention (NCCMERP), medication error is "... 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. Such events may be related to professional practice, health care products, procedures, and systems including: prescribing; order communication; product labelling, packaging and nomenclature; compounding; dispensing; distribution; administration; education; monitoring; and use" (The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's, 2010).
Precaution
Commercial dispensaries and pharmacies now have messaging in their drug selection procedure. The dispenser triggers a double-check demand, if confusion arises due to similarity in the name and appearance of a drug, to ensure that the right agent is selected. Dispensing systems use an overview process to review DUR responses and decisions. The overview process calls for a thorough professional evaluation in case it detects any excessive ignorance by a dispensing practitioner. This underlines the need for implementation of continuous quality improvement (CQI) procedure that evaluates reporting and other activities that follow reporting. Presence of a continually developing work flow improvement process ensures a disciplinary approach and maximum patient safety (The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's, 2010).
Source of Precaution
Pharmacy
Recommendations
Bar Coding
Using standard machine-readable codes helps in lowering medication errors and improving patient safety. Bar coding is an electronic tool that helps in identifying and administering the right drug in the right dose to the patient. Bar codes on packages can be scanned to embed information in a detailed level. The NCCMERP suggests a collaboration of the United States Pharmacopeia, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure that the following information are embedded in the bar code of a drug:
National Drug Code (NDC) number to identify the unique drug, form of dose, and strength
Lot/Control/Batch number for product recalling conditions
Expiration date to avoid supplying outdated medications
Electronic Prescription Record
An electronic prescription record (EPR) stores various data required to fill, label, and give away, and/or submit prescription payment requests legally. An EPR avoids medication errors by offering pharmacists information regarding duplicate therapies and drug interactions and contraindications. It also offers an opportunity to monitor and review the utilization and enable communication among healthcare providers for better patient care (The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's, 2010).
E-prescribing
The Computerized Physician Order Entry (COPE) is a technology that facilitates storing the prescriptions on a computer/device. The physicians can enter their prescriptions on the computer directly, significantly lowering and preventing the errors that arise from handwritten prescriptions. COPE and E-prescribing can be easily adopted by the physicians to prevent errors due to illegible handwritten prescriptions by using the right abbreviations and terminology and averting any omitted information and unclear orders (The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's, 2010).
Electronic DUR
An electronic online drug utilization review (DUR) helps pharmacists to examine a prescription when it is handed over for filling, thus proactively avoiding various drug-patient issues like drug interactions, inappropriate usages, and drug allergies. Pharmacists can look into a prescription when the drug is dispensed and check whether the prescribed drug is appropriate, based on pharmacy and/or medical record of the patient. Some of the medication errors that can be avoided using an online DUR include:
Drug-disease reactions
Drug interactions
Incorrect drug dosage
Inappropriate duration of drug treatment
Allergies
Clinical abuse or misuse (The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's, 2010).
Automated Medication Dispensing
Automated medication dispensing systems avoid medication errors by performing the tasks of a pharmacist. These include exhaustive, repeated movements, tasks requiring high levels...
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