Medication Error In Health Care

According to Hughes and Beglen (2008), “A 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” (p. 398). As stated above, medication errors can lead to patient harm, however, this type of errors are preventable. As an example, I would like to share a personal experience related to medication errors. A few months ago, one of my family members had a bad experience with one of his child’s, when the wrong dosage of medication was prescribed. After finishing a school day, my sister in law noticed that one of my nieces was not feeling well and decided to take her to her regular pediatrician. When my sister in law and my niece arrive at their doctor’s office, a nurse told them that the doctor was out of town,

Work overload and understaffing can be significant factors that contribute to errors. In order to make improvements and maintain a high level of patient safety and quality care, it is very important that health care employees keep a record of any mistake that happens. Also, emphasis needs to be made in improving the working environment for health care professionals, and in consequence decreases the number of errors. As stated by Hughes and Beglen (2003), “Medication safety for patients is dependent upon systems, process, and human factors, which can vary significantly across health care settings” (p.415). Therefore, policies and guidelines need to be made in order to establish an acceptable number of employees available for patients per shift and to evade designating too many tasks per employee. In addition, the implementation of a system that double checks the prescriptions before giving it to the patient can help to prevent mistakes. Overall, all these changes will decrease errors and improve patient