Medication Errors
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Medication errors are a major concern for most hospitals. In 2002, the U. S. PharmacopeiaÆs voluntary med error tracking system, MEDMARX, received 192,477 reports of medication errors, and that is with less than 10 percent of the nationÆs hospitals participating (Lafleur, 2004, 29). Fortunately, only 20 of these errors were fatal, another 47 required life-sustaining interventions, and another 514 cases led to either initial or prolonged hospitalization. A more recent study of some 36 hospitals and nursing homes showed that nearly 20 percent of all medications administered involved some sort of mistake. In every case, at least one of the five cardinal ôrightsö of medication administration - right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time - was wrong. Many methods are currently being sought to overcome the tremendous problem of medication errors, and computers are increasingly being used in efforts to avoid these problems (Lafleur, 2004, 29). In 2001, the Institute of Medicine called for the elimination of hand-written drug orders over the next ten years. Congress introduced two bills that together would award more than $1.3 billion in grants to hospitals to help them adopt the latest technology. This year, the Food and Drug Administration issued a ruling requiring bar code labeling of most prescription drugs and over-the-counter drugs dispensed by doctorsÆ orders in hospitals. The agency for Healthcare Research and Quality established that comp
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ealthcare OrganizationsÆ (JCAHO) new requirements for complying with the patient safety goal of improving communication (Lafleur, 2004, 31). This compliance includes a ban on certain abbreviations and acronyms which can lead to mistakes, e.g. 4.0 which can be confused with 40, IU which can be read as IV or 10, Q.D. (every day) and Q.O.D. (every other day) (31). JCAHO has assigned a high-alert status to the drugs insulin, potassium chloride, morphine, hydromorphine HCl, heparin, and warfarin sodium because they carry a greater potential for injury when medical errors in their dosage occur. Since there are an ever-increasing number of drugs coming into use, nurses should always familiarize themselves with drugs when dispensing them for the first time.
The ChildrenÆs Hospital of Pittsburgh was able to cut its medication errors in half using the new computer technology (ChildrenÆs, 2004,401). It also allowed them to decrease medication delivery time and expedite regulatory compliance. All physicians practicing at ChildrenÆs Hospital have gone through the computerized physician order entry (CPOE) training requirements and are using the system. Compliance is facilitated because Pennsylvania law requires any order to be co-signed
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Approximate Word count = 1600
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)
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