Medication Errors

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control your life changing decisions. One large part of this is the medications one is given while in our care. I can only imagine what it must be like for patients to have a stranger to come in and start administering drugs to me. This would be especially scary if I did not know what these medications did, or what negative effects could be caused by taking them. Unfortunately, the fear of medication errors that many patients have are not unfounded. Estimates range from 1.5 to 66 million patients a year have medication errors occur while they are in the care of health care professionals. Considering all of the technology we have at our finger tips today one would think that we would be beyond this magnitude of errors by now. However, you always have to account for the human element involved in all of these situations.

I recently read an article trying to fully understand how we can eliminate as many medication errors as possible. The article titled ASHP Guidelines on preventing Medication Errors in Hospitals that outlined many different avenues that both individuals and organizations can take to reduce the occurrence of medication errors. Overall, I must say that I agree with most of the methods described in the writing. One of the most notable suggestions I read was under the Organizational and Departmental Recommendations section. It stated "Care and consideration must be given in hiring and assigning personnel involved in medication ordering, preparation, dispensing, administration, and patient education. Policies and procedures should be developed that ensure adequate personnel selection, training, supervision, and ...

... middle of paper ...

...s is the human nature. We will never be perfect for the shear reason that it is not in our nature to be. The main thing we can do, though, is to continually work on different solutions that will enhance our abilities in the future. Either that or design a fault proof computer system that can order, calculate, and administer all medications with no errors. However, I do not foresee ourselves as humans to be willing to give that much control to a machine designed by imperfect beings.

Works Cited

Aleccia, J. (2010). Look-alike, sound-alike drugs trigger dangers . Health News on MSNBC.com , 1-4.

American Society of Hospital Pharmacists. (1993). ASHP guidelines on preventing medication errors in hospitals. Medication Misadventures , 129-137.

Bates, D. W. (1998). The Impact of Computerized Physician Order Entry on Medication Error Prevention. Jamia , 1-175.