7,000 prescription medications drugs are available

Reduce Medication Errors

In addition , patients  will have psychological and even physical pain and suffering from  medication errors. Finally,  medication errors leads to decreased patient satisfaction .  With the dissatisfaction comes a increased lack of trust in the United Syaes healthcare system. Med-Q Smart Pill Dispenser with alalrms has  reviewed some of the common causes of medication errors.  Also, the neeeded discusiions from the  health care team’s role in finding ways  to minimize medication errors.

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What are the top Objectives

  • Find out which are the most common errors related to taking medications.
  • Focus on the  critical points when medication errors are most likely. Ex. using an “old Fashion” Pill box.
  • Write down specific strategies to prevent medication errors from happening in the first place.
  • How to use Modern Technology to reduce errors.

Medication Error Prevention Introduction

otc pillsThere are close to 7,000 prescription medications.  Also, there are 10’s of thousands of over-the-counter pills.  . To further complicate a practitioner’s responsibility during patient care, there are thousands of health supplements, herbs, potions, and lotions used by the public regularly to treat their health problems. With the number of substances on the market, it is conceivable that mistakes can be made when practitioners prescribe or dispense drugs. Added to this is the high risk of interaction between substances.

Each year, in the United States alone, 95,000 die from medication error. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of other patients experience  adverse reaction or other complications from the medication. The total cost of looking after patients with medication-associated errors , over $45 billion a year.  The numbers are staggering.  Over 7 million patients affected every year. Patients will often experience psychological and physical pain and suffering as well.  All as a direct result of medication errors. Finally,  it leads to increased patient dissatisfaction as well as a increase in the lack of faith in the US healthcare system.

The most common reasons for errors include but are not limited to:

  • failure to communicate drug orders
  •  illegible handwriting for the Healthcare Provider
  • Not Taking the Medications as prescribed (forgetting or overdosing)
  • confusion over drugs that have similarly names
  • mixing up similar packaging on  different products
  • Errors involving dosing units 

Finally, Medication errors are due to human errors on many or most occasions.  Many say it is the result of a broken system with inadequate backup to detect errors.

Definitions of Medication Error

A medication error can be defined 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 healthcare professional, patient, or consumer,” according to the National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention.

medication errorsThis being said,  there is no uniform definition of a medication error, The National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention defines a medication error as stated above.  These types of occurrences are often shown in many areas.  For example, related to professional practice or kinds of  health care products,.  Other example, prescribing and using a medication reminder.  There will be product labeling and packaging, confusion.  All these are compounded with dispensing; distribution; administration and basic education” However, as of today, there is no standard that has been widely accepted in a generic uniform definition. Unfortunately,  medical errors, reported and unreported result in significant morbidity and mortality.

Adverse Drug Reaction

The WHO (World Health Organization) defines an adverse drug reaction as:

“any response that is noxious, unintended, or undesired, which occurs at doses normally used in humans for prophylaxis, diagnosis, therapy of disease, or modification of physiological function.”

Adverse drug reactions are expected negative outcomes that are inherent to the pharmacologic action of the drug .  Many times, they are  not  preventable.  However,  medication errors are 100 percent preventable.

Adverse Drug Event

What is an adverse drug reaction? An adverse drug event is “an injury from a medication or a missed or inappropriately dosed medication.: These happenings to lead to  morbidity or mortality . There is a  difference between an adverse drug reaction and an adverse drug event .  To illustarte,  an adverse drug event, the patient must be exposed to a medication with a negative consequence.  The negative interaction may or may not be expected. There is a difference with adverse events.  In an adverse drug events, the patient suffers a negative consequence from receiving a drug in the usual manner it was intended, did not receive a medication that was required, or received the medication in a manner that was inappropriate such as too high or low a dose.

Medication ErrorsAre You Heading to a Medication Misadventure

A medication misadventure is an  incident that is inherent to medication receiving all kinds of  therapy. Medication misadventure is made up a different kinds of  medication errors  For example, adverse drug reactions, and adverse drug events. It happens from the omission or commission of medication administration. Medication misadventures seem to always be undesirable and on most occasion,  unexpected.  In addition,  they may or may not be independent of preexisting conditions.  Finally, be due to human or system error, like forgetting to take one’s medications on time.

Sentinel Event

The Joint Commission defines a sentinel event as “an unexpected occurrence involving death or serious physical or psychological injury, or the risk thereof. Serious injury specifically includes loss of limb or function. The phrase ‘or the risk thereof’ includes any process variation for which a recurrence would carry a significant chance of a serious adverse outcome.” Sentinal events may include medication errors, adverse drug events, and medication misadventures. Sentinel events cause significant morbidity or mortality and are possibly preventable.

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