Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay Assignment paper
Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay Assignment paper
The main aim of public health is to ensure patient safety. It is as a result of this fact that numerous precautions and measures have been put in place to ensure that the overall health of the public is guaranteed. Despite the efforts that have been put in place to ensure that this goal is realized, the society still faces various health challenges. One of the health challenges that contemporary societies are facing come from medication errors. As asserted by Grissinger (2013), medication errors are considered as being one of the most common medical errors in the contemporary world.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
In the United States, for instance, approximately 1.5 million people are harmed by this predicament which result in the spending of approximately $3.5 billion directly or indirectly to put the resultant effects under control and a further $77 billion is spend on morbidity and mortality costs (PST, 2015). The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) recognizes medication errors as a major public health issue and has put a lot of effort in terms of research and funding to reduce its occurrence in the field of medicine. Despite the efforts of the AMCP and other bodies engaged in this campaign, the instances and effects of medication errors are still felt all around the globe. This paper will this expound on this issue by defining medication errors, exploring the factors that lead to their occurrence, critically analyzing the procedures and steps that are followed in an event of a medication error, and the recommendations that can be put in place to control and reduce its occurrence in medical practice.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay Assignment paper
Medication Errors
PST (2015) defined medication errors as errors that might come about at any stage from the drug prescription process by a clinician to the receipt of medication by a patient. On the other hand, preventable adverse drug events only occur when a patient actually receives and uses a prescription drug resulting harm. It is critical to note that most preventable adverse drug events are preventable if proper measures are put in place. In some instances, a patient might not be harmed by a drug that has been wrongfully administered, either through early interception or by the lack of reaction by their bodies. Such errors are referred to as potential adverse drug events. There are those patients who are harmed after consuming drugs that had been wrongfully administered to them, but this administration could have been mitigated. Such errors are referred to as ameliorable adverse drug events. Finally, there are events whereby a patient is harmed by a drug that was correctly prescribed and administered. Such errors are referred to as unpreventable adverse drug events, more commonly known as side effects.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
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One of the highest risk medications that is currently used in medicine is anticoagulant heparin. The administration of this drug is considered as being risky due to the fact that it dosage highly relies on the patient’s weight as well as consistent monitoring and testing of their blood clotting ability (PST, 2015). If the administered dose is too high, the patient stands a high chance of bleeding extensively. If the dose is inadequate on the other hand, the patient might experience clotting complications. Therefore, is a clinician prescribes heparin whose dosage is either too high or inadequate, this case will be treated as a medical error. If these errors are detected before the drug is administered to the patient, it will be considered as an ameliorable adverse drug event. However, if the patient fails to suffer from harm whatsoever, this case will be considered as a potential adverse drug effect. At this point, it is critical to note that medical errors can occur in either pharmaceutical setting where drug prescriptions are administered by qualified medical personnel or in ambulatory setting where patients administer drugs by themselves.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
Causes of Medical Errors
In practice, the process of prescribing a drug to a patient is generally complex in nature. However, as pointed out earlier in this paper, medication error can occur at any given stage from the time a prescription is given to the point where the patient receives the actual drug. According to AMCP (2010), medication errors can arise as a result of the following factors:
- Incorrect diagnosis
- Error during prescription
- Error in the calculation of dosages
- Poor drug distribution and handling practices
- Administration of incorrect drugs
- Poor communication
- Lack of proper education
- Drug device related problems
Of the listed factors above, the most leading cause of medication errors is considered to be errors during prescription of the actual drug. Medication errors as a result of poor drug prescription have caused harm to millions of patients and in some adverse instances, this error has resulted in fatalities. In the USA, for instance, fatalities as a result of poor prescription of drugs were approximated to be around 198,000 (AMCP, 2010). By the year 2000, this figure had increased to 218,000 causing the economy to lose approximately $177 billion annually on mortality related costs (AMCP, 2010).Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
As put by Peters (2007), preventable medication errors occur due to inappropriate application of the systems that have been put in place to regulate the drug prescription and ordering process. Illegible handwritten prescriptions are one of the leading causes of preventable medical errors. In such an event, it is usually difficult, and at times impossible to determine the legitimacy of a given prescription. Errors may also arise due to the lack of critical information such as co-prescribed medicine, the response of the patient to previous dosages of the same drug, patient’s medical records and the possibility of allergic reactions to specific medication.
Such information is critical, as it will determine whether or not a patient should be administered a specific drug, the dosage to be administered, and the level of monitoring that should be put in place. Such considerations also eliminate the possibility of an incorrect drug or dosage being prescribed. Confusion also arises when drugs with similar names are prescribed orally. This confusion also extends when dispensing drugs that have names that look more or less alike while dealing with handwritten prescriptions. Finally, lack of proper drug documentation and utilization reviews can lead physicians to wrongly prescribe drugs especially during the sampling process.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
Dispensing errors are also common causes of medical errors, especially in pharmaceutical settings. These errors arise as a result of omission or commission by medical personnel. Commission errors arise in events where medical personnel prescribe the wrong drug, dosage, or input an incorrect entry in the computer during the process of dispensing drugs. On the other hand, omission errors arise as a result of failure to counsel a patient, to conduct extensive tests and background checks (medical history) and so on. These errors result in the admission of an incorrect dosage (form or strength), an incorrect drug, or failure to determine the interactions and adverse effects that a specific drug might have on a patient.
Errors also do occur as a result of improper drug administration. These errors can arise either from the acts of a healthcare provider or a patient. In most cases, drug administration errors do come about as a result of miscommunication (AMCP, 2010). On one end, it is a common practice for patients not to take into consideration the information that is being conveyed to them while receiving oral or handwritten prescriptions for drugs. This can highly be attributed to the fact that they are unaware of the effects and repercussions that incorrect drug administration might have to them.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
In such instances, medication errors do occur due to the miscommunication on the name of the drug, its appearance, the reasons behind the prescription of the drug, the quantity and frequency that the drug is to be consumed, the best time to take the drug, the duration of which the drug is to be taken and the common effects the drug might have on them, especially considering its consumption with food, substances and other drugs. Furthermore, over-the-counter medication also pose a huge threat of medication errors due to the fact that most patients do not take their time to read the information and instructions on these drugs. It is also difficult for healthcare providers to determine whether patients take over-the-counter drugs and if so, it is difficult to identify the ones that have been consumed.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
Response to Medication Errors
At this juncture, it is critical to point out that healthcare providers do not deliberately commit medication errors in the course of their practice. These individuals are highly trained and possess the knowledge and skill that is required to ensure professional execution of their roles, especially with regards to drug prescription and administration (AMCP, 2010). It is perhaps as a result of this fact that when medication errors occurs, healthcare providers are usually the ones who get blamed for the incident, despite the fact that they might not in any way have been involved in the commission of the error. Normally, the such professionals tend to receive formal punishment from respective bodies and might include acts like the imposition of fines and suspension or revocation of their practicing licenses. In most cases, the accused professionals tend to lose respect from their fellow practitioners; an act that might have adverse impacts on them as compared to any form of punishment that might be directed towards them.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
However, from a critical point of view, punishment might not be the best approach towards minimizing medication errors despite the fact that it is critical in ensuring professional standards and ethics are adhered to. It is much more important to determine system weaknesses that might have resulted in the actual commission of the error (AMCP, 2010). Therefore, a thorough investigation of the drug use and delivery system that is in place is important to identify and rectify system weaknesses as a means of preventing future incidences from occurring. The success of this approach highly relies on the efforts put by healthcare professionals with regards to monitoring, identification, and evaluation of medical errors. At the same time, it is important to ensure that an environment that is not punitive, threatening, and is confidential is present in a medical setting to encourage medical professionals not only to prevent medication errors from occurring but also in reporting these instances to ensure that corrective measures are put in place to prevent such incidences from occurring in future.Medication Errors in the Public Health Report Essay
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