Medication errors in the emergency department: need for pharmacy involvement?

Medication errors in the emergency department: need for pharmacy involvement?

Collection:
Health Policy and Services Research
Series Title(s):
Pennsylvania patient safety advisory
Contributor(s):
Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority.
ECRI (Organization)
Institute for Safe Medication Practices.
Publication:
[Harrisburg, Pa.] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, c2011
Language(s):
English
Format:
Text
Subject(s):
Emergency Service, Hospital -- organization & administration
Interprofessional Relations
Medication Errors -- prevention & control
Pharmacists
Pharmacy Service, Hospital -- organization & administration
Professional Role
Quality Improvement
United States
Genre(s):
Technical Report
Abstract:
Of all care areas mentioned in medication error reports submitted from August 1,2009, through July 31, 2010, to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, the emergency department (ED) is the third most commonly mentioned, appearing in 6% of all medication error reports. The predominant medication error event types in the ED include wrong dose/overdosage, drug omission, and wrong drug. The predominant classes of drugs mentioned in wrong-dose/overdosage error reports include antibiotics, steroids, anticoagulants/antithrombotics, opioids, and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory agents. Possible risk reduction strategies include expanding the role of the pharmacy department in the ED's medication-use process, limiting the number and variety of medications and concentrations available in the ED, and incorporating redundancies (e.g., order read-back) throughout the medication-use process.
Copyright:
Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
NLM Unique ID:
101555791 (See catalog record)
Permanent Link:
http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101555791