Medication Errors Literature Review

Errors in medication: a literature review on causes, impacts and prevention measures in association to medications errors.
The aim of the topic of interest is to address the broad question: in patients below the age of seventeen, how does errors in medication, compared to the right medication influence their risks of developing medical complications during their admission period in the hospital. The literature review’s focus is to describe research presenting current information on medication errors. Exploring information known on distractions and interruptions more specifically on medication administration errors. Medication errors to a big extent cause morbidity, adverse drug effects and mortality in patients who are hospitalized. It also

The study found out that in every three adverse drug effects caused by medication errors, one of them occurs by a nurse medication administration. Additionally, In the US, annual estimated cost of drug caused morbidity and mortality is above $ 1.56 billion. Adverse drug effects caused by medication errors is rated to be between 3% and 28% of all the hospitalizations in the US. In another study done by Wakefield et.al investigating nurses perceptions on the causes of medication errors shows that error at administration was 56.4%, documentation error of 87.5% (the majority), technique error of 73,1% and time error of 53.6%. As it turns out, error in documentation is the most dominant found in the

They can result from the various processes involved in treatment: prescribing, dispensing, administering the medication and monitory of treatment. In addition, there are several factors contributing to medication errors in hospitals. They include individual staff errors and system errors. There are many dangers resulting from medication error on the patient. They include deterioration of health status of the individual, increased financial expenses (as there is possibility of longer stay in the hospital) and development of medical complications. Severe outcomes can be result to medication errors including disability, paralysis and death. These errors may also have impact on the family members of the victim as they know that the danger facing the victim could have been avoided if the care givers could have been more careful. These errors can be prevented by careful changes in operational systems in the hospital. Hospital managers can harmonize their systems and summon their workers to be more careful when handling the patients. With prevention of these errors, patients would spend little time in hospitals, with fast healing process with prevention of health status