Medication errors common in hospitals

According to a recent study it was reported that medication errors, some with potentially life-threatening consequences, are common in US hospitals. Errors such as giving patients the wrong drug dose, delivering medication at the wrong time, giving patients an unauthorized drug or forgetting to give patients their medicine occurred in nearly one out of every five medication doses given in hospitals and nursing facilities included in the study. The percentage of errors rated potentially harmful was 7%, or more than 40 per day in a typical 300-patient medical facility. Previous research has shown that nearly half of all such events involved mistakes surrounding the administration of drugs. The researchers at the University in Auburn, Alabama, USA based their study on observations made at 36 hospitals and nursing facilities i.e. hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organisations, non-accredited hospitals, and skilled nursing facilities in Georgia and Colorado. Medication errors were witnessed by observation and a trained research pharmacist verified all observations. Clinical significance was judged by an expert panel of physicians. In the current study, errors described as potential adverse drug events included giving insulin nearly 3 hours after it was due, or giving double the ordered dosage of verapamil, a blood pressure lowering drug. Overall, mistakes were made in 19% of doses given, or 605 of 3,216 doses. The most common error was giving medication at the wrong time (43% of errors), omitting medication (30%), giving patients the wrong dose (17%), and giving patients a drug that had not been authorized (4%). The study findings highlight the need to revamp the medication delivery and administration systems of US hospitals. The problem of defective medication administration systems, although varied, is widespread. While the study did not investigate possible ways to improve the delivery of medication, robotics and bar code systems could help reduce errors according to researchers. These results support the proposition that the problems lie with medication systems, and thus systems research is called for. Also, a similar study in India too may yield surprising results.