The Wall Street Journal has reported that medication errors result in at least one death per day and cause personal injuries to 1.3 million Americans per year.
Nurses can misunderstand abbreviations on a pharmacy order. Examples of deaths from medication errors are: (1) accidental overdose of a drug that slows the heart rate; (2) i.v. fluids administered at too high of a level after surgery on a child; and (3) confusion over drug names that leads to addition of insulin to infant’s i.v. instead of the correct medication such as an anti-clotting drug.
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists launched the National Alert Network for Serious Medication Errors. This network will send e-mail alerts to pharmacists, doctors, and nurses when a life-threatening or death causing medication error is reported. The goal is to spread the word about the consequences of medication errors.
Medication errors have increased because of pressure for hospitals to cut costs via stretching of their staff in these tough economic times. A survey of 850 nurses and pharmacists revealed 20% of them reported making a medication mistakes with insulin, narcotics, heparin, and chemotherapy.
Consumers can sign up for customized alerts about medications they take and report problems to http://www.consumermedsafety.org. To avoid medication errors, consumers should ask healthcare providers to explain what medications are being given and what are the correct dosages.
Some patient safety experts say this network is not enough and there needs to be other techniques implemented such as electronic medical records (elminates bad doctor handwriting) and bar coding systems (confirms drugs match with patient’s age, condition, or diagnosis).
The reporting of medication errors by health care providers is confidential and cannot be used in a medical malpractice lawsuit.
Hopefully, this network will decreased the amount of indviduals who are victims of medical malpractice due to medication errors committed by their healthcare providers or pharmacists.
