Analysis and Prevention of Medication Errors

The latent errors in the medication use system have been described in several studies. Major contributors to errors in medication use were found to be knowledge gap related to drug therapy (30%)  

FIGURE 26.5 Latent medication system errors (A) and defensive layers against error (B) in the medication system. 

The rate and nature of medication errors has been studied by several authors. Nightingale et al. found a medication error rate of 0.7% in a British National Health Service general hospital (25). Rothschild et al. (26) found 36.2% preventable adverse events plus an additional 149.7 serious errors per 1000 patient days. 

Lack of knowledge of the drug Faulty dose checking 

Lack of information about the patient Infusion pump and parenteral delivery problems 

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