Safe Prescribing

Question 1

What is medication error?

Answer 1

Medication error = preventable event that may lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm

Question 2

What can medication error events be related to?

Answer 2

• Professional practice
• Health care products
• Procedures and systems
• Labelling
• Dispensing
• Distribution
• Administration
• Education
• Monitoring

Question 3

What are examples of medication errors?

Answer 3

• Giving patient wrong drug
• Giving wrong dose

Question 4

How can the liklihood of medication errors be reduced (individual and system causes)?

Answer 4

• Individual
  
  • Knowledge of remedies
  • Skill to intercept harm
  • Clinical skill
  • Sound judgement
  • Error awareness
  • Calling for help
• System
  
  • Safety triggers to alert staff
  • Culture of speaking up
  • Make remedies available
  • Support clinician needs
  • Foster culture of safety

Question 5

What things increase the risk of medication errors?

Answer 5

• Rapid throughout of patient
• New drug developments, extending medicines into new areas
• Increasing complexity of medical care
• Increased specialisation
• Increased use of medicines generally
• People causes
  
  • Fatigue, hunger, concentration, stress, distraction, lack of training, lack of access to information

Question 6

What are some people causes of medication errors?

Answer 6

• Fatigue, hunger, concentration, stress, distraction, lack of training, lack of access to information

Question 7

What are the 5Rs that should be remembered when administering medication?

Answer 7

• Right patient
• Right drug
• Right dose
• Right route
• Right time

Question 8

What are different types of errors?

Answer 8

• Surgery (most common)
• Drug treatment
• Therapeutic mishaps
• Diagnostic errors

Question 9

What patients are most at risk of errors?

Answer 9

• Undergoing cardiothoracic, vascular or neurosurgery
• Complex conditions
• Emergency room
• Looked after by inexperienced doctors
• Older patients

Question 10

What are examples of common prescibing errors?

Answer 10

• Wrong drug
• Wrong dose
• Inappropriate units
• Illegible prescription
• Failure to take into account drug interactions
• Wrong route
• Calculation errors

Question 11

What can be done to reduce the risk of prescribing errors?

Answer 11

• Write legibly
• Avoid abbreviations
• Avoid decimal points
• Always check patient information

Question 12

What are examples of drug formularies where information can be found?

Answer 12

• National formularies (such as BNF)
• Grampian joint formulary
• WHO