All too often, medication mistakes pose a major threat to patients’ well-being and are a recurrent issue that undermines health (Schroers et al., 2021). Such mistakes, which happen in a variety of phases of medication management, ranging from order writing to administering, result in negative consequences for patients, high cost of care, and potential lawsuits (ISMP, 2020). This study is aimed at providing an overview of medication errors, their consequence on the healthcare system as well and crucial measures that can enhance patient safety. Healthcare providers can thereby become more aware and better educated in order to avoid such mistakes by taking measures that ensure the safety of patients. Therefore, this paper focuses on exploring common drug errors, their implications for the patient and the healthcare system, as well as established strategies and techniques applied to prevent these errors.
Common Medication Errors
Medication errors are common and critical as they relate to patient safety and the general improvement of medical services. Medical practitioners, institutions, and policymakers need to understand the different types of adverse drug events, their far-reaching consequences on patients and the entire medical care system, as well as the effective measures that can be taken to avoid them. Examples of medication errors are;
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Prescribing errors
Prescribing the incorrect drug, dosage, or route is one of the most common medication mistakes. Errors may occur across different steps of the prescription process. For example, one might write a wrong medicinal dose because of the illegibility of a hand-written prescription, and thus, it is misread by a nurse or pharmacist. Prescription errors can also arise from unfinished medication orders and communication gaps between healthcare practitioners. Prescribing errors can result when a busy healthcare provider accidentally picks out a medicine that has a similar sounding name as the intended one in high-speed clinical settings.
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Administration errors
Errors in medication administration are regularly seen in healthcare environments. Such errors occur when the professional gives the drug through the wrong channel and at the wrong time. Administration errors often arise as a result of distractions and interruptions during the medication administration process, such as giving antibiotics or medication intended for one patient to another due to a lack of attention while attending to many patients at once. Such interruptions may divert the attention of a health care provider, leading to wrong medicine administration. Another common factor in administration errors is misidentifying medication orders or labels.
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Dosage Errors
Dosage errors are a major problem. They may crop up at various levels, from writing prescriptions to giving treatment. It may be miscalculated in some cases where a medical provider is supposed to quantify the right amount of the remedy depending on weight or age. Dosage errors may also arise from incomplete or unclear dosing instructions. The error may occur when converting from one unit of measure, say milligrams, to micrograms, resulting in the wrong prescription.
Look-alike Drug Label Errors
The second important category comprises look-alike drug label errors in which medicines having the same package or label design or named nearly identical lead to accidental overdose due to uncertainty caused by previously discussed errors. Errors may arise in different areas, including prescribing, dispensing and during the administration process.
In many cases, several medicines are put into one package and packed up in alike vessels. This can occur when the same medication comes in almost indistinguishable packaging, and a medical practitioner chooses the wrong prescription unintentionally. In such a case, healthcare practitioners can take another look at drugs intending to give the patient the right drug. There are some medicines with similar names, thus are prone to confusion. Such an incident may take place in a hospital or pharmacy setting where medical practitioners review an order for the prescribed medicine, causing confusion and choosing the wrong medicine.
Look-alike drug label errors can have serious implications, including patient harm, higher costs, and legal actions related to health care. To prevent these errors, it is necessary to take a comprehensive strategy that includes appropriate drug packaging and labelling, proper communication between members of health care staff, as well as technological tools like bar code scanning systems in order to confirm the medication being used.
Impact on Patients and Families
Prescribing errors: These errors can have a deep, negative impact on patients and may adversely affect their entire family. Patients’ health can be compromised when doctors issue an improper prescription, such as the wrong drug or incorrect dosage, and patients experience worse symptoms. Emotions are involved, too, because patients and family members can become afraid, lose trust in the medical service, and, sadly, die, as in the case of Richard Smith (Tony, 2015). All these problems create stress and monetary pressures on all people who might get involved in lawsuits.
Administration errors: Of all the medication administration errors, those that fall into the category of preventable adverse events are the most distressing to patients and their families. This may result in instant complications or harm of a severe nature when administering the wrong medication/wrong route. In some patients, this can result in undesirable outcomes such as anaphylactic shock, allergies, or even worsened pain and disturbance of comfort. Administration errors can make patients and their families feel betrayed or more confused, which necessitates extra medical interventions and prolonged hospitalization periods, resulting in accumulating financial pressure on the patients along with their families.
Dosage errors: Patients and family members are largely affected by dose errors. Incorrect administration may lead to under-treatment when patients do not get the desired therapeutical effect or over-treatment that could bring about negative side effects and toxicity. There is a high likelihood that under-treatment will result in continuous pain, hindered recovery, and advancement of the disease, which may have an impact on both patients and their families in terms of emotions and physical health. Such errors could require additional medical attention, which would eventually increase healthcare expenses, burdening the patients’ pockets. In totality, it leads to adverse effects spread across families, which directly concern the physical, economic, and psychological well-being of the patient.
Avoiding Medication Errors
Most nursing interventions aimed at avoiding prescribing errors focus on ensuring effective communication as well as verification processes. A major intervention involves standardizing medication ordering. As nurses, they can call for simplifying prescription forms such as clear, legible, and standardized to decrease the chances of confusion. In addition, nurses should be able to verify medication orders twice. To do this, one has to establish a patient’s I.D., medicine name, dosage, and route and also ensure it matches with the patient’s clinical condition. Staff nurses may be key in stimulating electronic prescribing solutions embedded with error avoidance checks or warnings, like using the Josie King safety program (Juan, 2017). Also, they should be advocating direct communication channels for the purpose of giving unambiguous instructions about medications so as to reduce the probability of writing off errors when administering prescription drugs.
Nurses’ interventions are intended to avoid medication administration errors. One essential step is to employ the “five rights” of medication administration: right medication, right dose, proper way, at the correct time). In addition, nurses can use barcode scanning devices to identify verification of patient’s identification along with prescribed medications. It also needs to carry out medication reconciliation extensively so as to compare the medicines that the patient takes and those recommended in order to avoid any discrepancies or repetition of similar medicine. Nurses should verify that all elements of the medication are accurate, such as drug, dosage, and route, before administering the medication to the patient. This includes nurses working towards promoting clear labels on packaging and storage of similar medicine in a way they do not appear like others, hence preventing such errors.
Impact on Students
Being an intended nurse means that I know how serious is a chance to take some medication my whole life. In this regard, there are certain medication errors that I dread making, hence the necessity for preemptive actions in averting them.
Prescribing errors such as illegible handwriting or incomplete medication orders affect me a lot. Thus, I must write my notes/orders neatly to avoid misreads in certain instances. Additionally, I will consult with more experienced practitioners in case of complicated and undefinable prescriptions, getting assistance with a better understanding.
Misunderstandings and mistakes in calculations of dose are another type of medication error that always alert me. In order to minimize the risks associated with improper calculation of dosage, I shall make sure that all my calculations are based on readily available technology/references at hand. It is essential to be thorough when checking and confirming doses so as to avoid committing errors. Finally, there is another danger of look-alike medication errors, where one can come across almost identical packaging, labels, or names while on internship duties in various health facilities (ISMP, 2020). In order to avoid such mistakes, I will continually utilize the “five rights” in administering medications and barcoding techniques to verify the identity of a patient receiving the medication.
Conclusion
Medication errors are one of the most common and important issues in health care, potentially endangering patients’ health and welfare. The exploration of typical mistakes in medicine, with the help of different literature, allows us to see their long-term repercussions on patients’ lives and existence in a family environment, as well as actions that nurses can take into account to enhance medication safety. With this in mind, it is essential for us as healthcare professionals to continuously emphasize patient safety by upholding a culture of safety characterized by open communication, partnership, and endless learning. Although medication errors are widespread, they need not serve as an impassible hurdle; these should be considered as challenges that can be tackled with concerted adherence to best practices and proactive steps. With this knowledge, by anticipating and avoiding these common medication mistakes and making patient safety the core of the whole healthcare system, we will move towards a secure care environment that protects both the patient and their family. In health care, the prevention of medical errors is more than just what we owe; it is as binding a pledge to our well-being to be served.
References
Carlos J. (2017). Josie King, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4nQ7qP02rQ
Institute for Safe Medication Practices, ISMP (2020). Start the new year off right by preventing these top 10 medication errors and hazards, 14(2), https://www.ismp.org/resources/start-new-year-right-preventing-these-top-10-medication-errors-and-hazards
Marc T. (2015). Richard Smith, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nx947HOZRE
Schroers, G., Ross, J. G., & Moriarty, H. (2021). Nurses’ perceived causes of medication administration errors: a qualitative systematic review. The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, 47(1), 38-53.
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