Medication Safety: An Essay On Medication Safety

illiam McCulley, Medication Safety:

If prescribed and used properly, medication safety should be guaranteed. Unfortunately, the reality is that medication errors are made at the pharmacy level that can endanger patient safety. Adverse drug reactions or overdosing are the most important consequences of failing to complete the medication use process as intended¬¬¬1. Errors can occur at any point within the medication process, but the areas that concern us most as pharmacist is in the prescribing, labeling, and dispensing. We also focus on ensuring the patient is well informed on how to use their medication before dispensing. Most, if not all, errors are preventable, and we can create strategies and systems to eliminate as much error as possible.

Surely not from lack of caring, so I believe it just comes from some sort of complacency. Many may feel that we do enough already to prevent error and may see any new strategies as wastes of time. There have been a lot of good changes in recent years due to changes in technology and I think that may have created this kind of attitude that we don’t need to improve safety anymore. However, I think it’s imperative that we convince everyone to put safety first because if we aren’t putting the patient first we shouldn’t be in health care at

I’ve read specifically about creating a “safety culture” in professional organizations and I think that’s a great way to look at it1. Every step of the process should have checks to eliminate as much error as possible, possibly even two checks if there is a big enough work force to accomplish that. Keeping up to date with all new drug information will be something I strive for. I want safety to always be my number one priority and I want to instill that attitude in those I work with. Safety is definitely a group effort, if any one link is weak it could cause a chain reaction leading to more errors. It is the expectation of the patient that when they go to the pharmacy that what they are given is one hundred percent correct and safe for them to take and they are right to think so. I plan on striving to ensure their trust in us is never