Preventing Medication Errors

Medication errors continue being a major cause for concern among the nursing profession. While many efforts have been put forth to eradicate this preventable cause of patient harm, the incidence of medication errors still continues to climb. According to an article in American Nurse Today (2015), “medication errors account for more than seven thousand deaths annually and each error cost anywhere from $2,000 to $8,750 dollars” (Anderson, & Townsend, p. 18). This statistic is alarming and does not even consider the medication errors that go unreported. Doctors, nurses and pharmacist play a vital role in catching and preventing these errors. Along with research, I was able to have a face to face interview with Ademola Adekunle, PharmD, a pharmacist at Texas Health Resources in regard to preventing medication …show more content…
Errors can occur at any stage of medication management, ranging from prescription, preparation, and administration. For this reason, it is essential that everyone involved in the medication cycle be aware of prevention methods used to reduce the occurrence of error. One critical tool in preventing medication errors, is using the five rights to medication administration and barcode scanning. These tools help make sure the right medication at the right time is going to the right patient. Ademola explained the benefits to computer ordering versus handwritten orders. “Being able to obtain orders through the computer has help tremendously in reducing errors due to handwriting that is difficult to read” (Adekunle, personal communication, January 15, 2018). According to a study held by Kumas, Madhwar, Pathak, & Saiki (2016), transcription related errors were 72.4 per month and drastically dropped to 2.2 per month after applying the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) tool (p. 1003). Finally, Ademola and I talked about the significance of correctly labeling look alike medications to help avoid