Update on medication errors associated with incorrect patient weights
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Pennsylvania patient safety advisory
- Author(s):
- Bailey, Bryan R., author Gaunt, Michael J., author Grissinger, Matthew, author
- Contributor(s):
- Pennsylvania. Patient Safety Authority, issuing body. ECRI (Organization), issuing body. Institute for Safe Medication Practices, issuing body.
- Publication:
- [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority, June 2016
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Body Weight Medication Errors -- prevention & control Medication Errors -- statistics & numerical data Patient Safety Humans Pennsylvania United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- Healthcare practitioners require a current, accurate patient weight because weight is often used to determine an appropriate medication dose. When errors occur during the process of obtaining, documenting, and communicating and using a patient's weight, the dose of a medication can be dangerously incorrect. Analysts reviewed event reports relating to patient weight submitted to the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Authority through the Pennsylvania Patient Safety Reporting System from December 2008 through November 2015. Of the 1,291 event reports related to patient weights, the majority of errors reached the patient (74.8%, n = 966) and the most common factors involved were documented weight too high (23.8%, n = 307), confusion between pounds and kilograms (23.2%, n = 300), and documented weight too low (14.9%, n = 192). Important risk-reduction strategies include obtaining a current, accurate weight instead of relying on a historical, stated, or estimated weight; and obtaining, documenting, and communicating patient weights in metric units only (i.e., grams or kilograms).
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-ND license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (pages 50-57))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101685499 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101685499