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Medication errors occurring in the radiologic services department
Medication errors occurring in the radiologic services department
- 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, c2009
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Medication Errors -- statistics & numerical data
Radiology Department, Hospital -- organization & administration
Contrast Media
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- An estimated 300 million radiologic procedures are conducted per year in the United States. In cardiac catheterization laboratories, radiology, and other diagnostic departments, medications such as contrast media are administered, rates are adjusted for intravenous (IV) fluids, and IV access lines are flushed. In addition to specific medications that are used in radiology, high-alert medications such as IV sedatives, vasopressors, and blood coagulation modifiers are given in this setting. Nearly 1,000 event reports submitted to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority specifically mentioned medication errors that occurred in care areas providing radiologic services. The administration of wrong drugs and unauthorized drugs was the most commonly reported medication error, followed by wrong-dose errors. While contrast agents and radiopharmaceutical products were cited in almost a quarter of all medication error reports, a majority of the drugs listed are used across the spectrum of patient care settings, not just in radiology. Many of these drugs are high-alert medications. Further qualitative analysis of events classified as wrong-rate medication errors in these areas shows no radiologic medications. Over half of these wrong-rate events involved high-alert medications. Strategies to address these problems include conducting organizational examinations of the medication-use processes in radiology areas to uncover risks that could lead to harmful errors, proactively addressing the plan for the management of the patient's infusion therapy while they are undergoing a radiologic procedure, and including radiology staff when evaluating and validating the level of training and competency to perform medication administration or related tasks.
- 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:
- 101563471 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101563471