Medication Error (ME)

Medication error (ME) is defined as “improper dosage, delivery of an incorrect medication administration to wrong patient, and inappropriate medication therapy” (XU et al., 2014, p. 286). ME is a long threat standing threat and is common errors in health care setting. It outcome can lead to physically harmful, fatal and prolong hospitalization, and enormously costly. In the mental health setting, some of causes of ME are, similarities of generic and brand names of drug, similarities of container labels and packages, and illegible of handwriting prescription. In this paper, the issue of medication administration error related to sound-alike and look-alike medications will be examines and implement a policy and procedure to prevent this error

In the medication administration management process, the prescribers (Physician, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant), orders the medication and treatment for patient. The order is signed and send to the pharmacist. The pharmacist received the order, review, interprets the order, detect therapeutic incompatibilities, dispense by labeling and packing for administration. The last management process is the nurse. The nurse duty is to review the received medication from the pharmacist then administer the medication to the patient. Any errors that occurs in this management can lead to medication error. The ethic code for all these professionals are to provide safety patient care and protect patients from harm. Therefore, this project target prescriber (Physician, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant), pharmacist, and nurses in medication error related to sound-alike and look-alike

24). I can occur during the process of selecting, prescribing, and dispensing medication. The institute for safe medication practice (ISMP) states the 10 key elements that has the greatest influence on medication administration. They are patient information, drug information, adequate communication, drug packaging, labeling and nomenclature, medication storage, stock, standardization, drug device acquisition use and monitoring, environmental factors, staff education and competency, patient education, and quality process and risk