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Medication errors are one of the major issues in medicine due to the number of patients who experience adverse effects that could have been prevented, the extra costs applied to the healthcare system, and most importantly, the broken trust between patients and healthcare practitioners. These mistakes can take place at any stage of medication process ranging from prescribing, dispensing, administering and monitoring. To improve patients’ safety and the quality of care provided, it crucial to identify the factors contributing to adverse events and, therefore, apply proper prevention measures. The aim of this assessment is to critically evaluate medication errors, determine the possible issues that might be underlying the problem, and assess possible solutions for reducing medication errors as well as ascertain the ethical consideration associated with handling this vital healthcare matter.
Medication errors are paramount in the healthcare delivery systems, causes complications to the patient, result to high costs, and instills less confidence in the system (Tariq & Scherbak, 2024). These mistakes may be committed at the prescriber level, at the time of preparing the prescription, at the time of giving the medicine to the patient, or during the observation period for the side effects of the drugs. This could be as a result of miscommunication, knowledge deficiency, or system related problems for instance poor labeling practices or use of substandard drug delivery systems. Moreover, medication reconciliation errors characterized by wrong administration of drugs at the wrong time or simply administering wrong drugs due to changes in the patient’s health status also contribute to harm. It is more important than ever, if patients are to be safeguarded, and therapeutic interventions are designed to be as facilitated as possible to deliver their maximum results.
To determine the root-causes of medication errors several dimensions must be taken into consideration including education of the care provider, technology, and system modifications. Continuing education programs as well as teaching programs for healthcare personnel should seek to illustrate the significance of precise communication as well as documentation in an effort to reduce the likelihood of errors occurring. Likewise, when it comes to electronic prescribing systems and automated drug dispensing technologies the percentage of errors is greatly minimized. Also, maintaining the policies, which encourage healthcare teams to report or analyze the medication errors without any type of punishment, is also necessary to avoid such mistakes in the future.
Medication errors are defined as preventable actual or potential adverse occurrences that may result in wrong medication utilization or cause harm to patients (Ambwani et al., 2019). Different causes leading to these errors are showcased in scholarly information such as human error, system problems, and non-communication integration in a health care system (Bindra et al., 2021). According to a research, it emerged that healthcare providers are overwhelmed with work and this makes them potent a prescriptive and administering errors (Hawkins & Morse, 2022). Also, the use of abbreviations and/or poor writing particularly when completing prescriptions has also emerged as a common area of concern, with regards to the interpretation of drug orders (Ross et al., 2021). Writing also indicates that there is a higher common of errors where handoffs are done such as during admission or discharge whereby failure in medication reconciliation leads to patients receiving wrong dosages, or even completely wrong medication. Lack of proper knowledge in terms of interaction between different drugs or any side effects that a particular drug may cause is another cause of drug related mistakes especially among new practitioners(Garin et
al., 2021). These dimensions when learnt from the scholarly research help one realize that where the healthcare system can prevent are areas of concern.
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