Medication Dispensing Errors and Prevention

Introduction:

In today's medical world, many doctors offer drug dispensing in addition to prescribing. Pharmaceutical dispensing systems are designed to simplify medicine administration and lower the possibility of mistakes. Errors can still happen and can have terrible effects on the patients.

Mistakes can occur throughout the administering or monitoring of the patient's medications, including during the prescribing and dispensing stages. These mistakes can impact the patient's confidence in healthcare systems, harm the patient's health, and cost institutions money. Errors in prescription and dispensing are the most common.

However, it must be remembered that most of the time, they can be avoided. It can be easier to spot where errors happen and lessen the impact on patient safety if knowing the most frequent errors and their causes. This article will explore the most common medication dispensing errors, their causes, and prevention strategies.

What Is a Medication Error?

Medication error is any preventable incident that may cause or contribute to incorrect medication usage or patient damage while the medicine is controlled by the healthcare professional, patient, or consumer. This includes:

1. Prescribing.

2. Order communication.

3. Product labeling.

4. Packaging.

5. Nomenclature.

6. Compounding.

7. Dispensing.

8. Distribution.

9. Administration.

10. Teaching.

11. Monitoring and use among other professional practice-related activities.

Unwanted medical mistakes and unreported drug errors cause severe morbidity and mortality.

What Are the Types of Medication Errors?

• Prescribing.

• Omission.

• Improper time.

• Unauthorized medication.

• Incorrect dosage.

• Wrong dosage prescription or preparation.

• Administration errors include providing the drug to the wrong patient, giving an additional dose, or administering it at the incorrect rate.

• Monitoring errors include neglecting to consider the patient's liver and renal function and failing to identify allergies or the possibility of a drug interaction.

• Compliance errors include failing to follow protocol or standards for dispensing and prescribing pharmaceuticals.

How Do Medication Errors Occur?

Medication mistakes can happen at various points in the patient care process, from ordering the medication to giving it to the patient. Medication mistakes typically arise at one of the following points:

• Ordering.

• Prescribing.

• Documenting.

• Transcribing.

• Dispensing.

• Administering.

• Monitoring.

Most medication mistakes occur during the ordering or prescribing process. Typical mistakes include prescribing and using the incorrect route, dose, or frequency. Almost 50 percent of drug errors are caused by these ordering blunders. Statistics demonstrate that between 30 and 70 percent of prescription ordering errors are caught by nurses and pharmacists. It is clear that pharmaceutical errors are a widespread issue, but this issue may be avoided.

What Mistakes Are Made Most Often While Dispensing Medications?

Incorrect Medication or Dose:

Medication errors occur when patients are given the incorrect drug or the inappropriate dose of the correct medication (an overdose or an underdose). It may happen for a number of reasons, including a breakdown in communication between the doctor and the chemist, an error made at the pharmacy, or an error made by the carer or patient.

Such mistakes have detrimental effects and could be fatal. As a result, it is crucial to check the drug and dosage twice before giving it to a patient. That is the only method to prevent making these errors. Someone should also educate carers and patients on the correct medication dose and identification.

Bad Timing:

The incorrect timing of medication administration is another common mistake. It can result from misunderstanding the medication's directions or between the doctor and chemist. To avoid these mistakes, knowing when to take each medication is essential. The many kinds of medication dispensing systems can be helpful by sending notifications and reminders for medication timings.

Why Do Mistakes in Drug Dispensing Occur?

Patient Errors:

Patients might also contribute to the medicine dispensing errors. It may occur if they fail to read the medicine's instructions or neglect to take their medication on schedule. People with many chronic conditions may find it challenging to take the proper medications at the correct times, especially when several different doctors and pharmacies are involved. Individuals dealing with many chronic illnesses may also have memory loss, eyesight impairment, or other impairments that make it more challenging to take their medications as directed. Patient-related errors are easily avoidable. Doctors must educate patients on taking their medication strictly as recommended.

Caregiver Errors:

Caregivers play an important role in drug administration, especially for patients who cannot take their prescriptions independently. Anybody who looks after someone with special needs, a disability, or an illness is considered a caregiver. Healthcare employees with caring obligations, such as nurses, are frequently tugged in multiple directions at work. However, errors can happen, such as giving the wrong prescription or dosage, failing to provide the medication at the proper time, or misinterpreting the medication instructions. It is essential to educate carers on correct drug administration to avoid caregiver-related errors, as well as how to recognize each prescription.

Pharmacist Errors:

Pharmacists are responsible for dispensing medication and ensuring patients get the right amount and prescription. Nonetheless, errors can still happen, such as giving the incorrect medication or dosage, mislabeling the substance, or failing to understand the doctor's instructions. Pharmacists should double-check the medication and dosage before dispensing it to avoid these errors. Also, they ought to receive proper instruction on how to use medication dispensing systems.

Payer Errors:

Payers can push clinicians and pharmacies to reduce prescription errors even when they are not directly at fault for medication dispensing errors. For instance, they can insist that relying entirely on patients' self-reports of their drug adherence may need to be updated and reliable. They can also help subsidize medicine dispensers and remote monitoring systems to track patient compliance and decrease errors.

What Is Pharmacy Error Prevention?

Many adverse medication events are avoidable, as they are frequently the result of human mistakes. The following failures are frequent reasons for pharmacy errors:

• Deliver the appropriate dosage.

• Determine medication contraindications.

• Determine any drug allergies.

• Drugs with narrow therapeutic indexes should be monitored.

• Be aware of medication interactions.

• Identify the knowledge gaps.

Talking to the patient and ensuring they understand the dosage, drug sensitivities, and other medications they might be taking will frequently prevent these mistakes. Lack of access to prescribers, ambiguous verbal and written directions, and time restraints that make it difficult to check for drug interactions are all obstacles to effective communication. A chemist's duties include monitoring patients' medication treatment and contacting the healthcare team when a discrepancy is detected. Many other factors can contribute to developing prescription and dispensing errors, including a high volume of work, a lack of experience, patient follow-up, shift length, and institutional safety standards. The only solution to fix problems is to implement a multimodal strategy focusing on education and prevention, transforming the entire health system.

What Are the Strategies to Prevent Medication Errors?

Following are some particular tactics to avoid pharmaceutical errors during prescription and dispensing:

• Always prescribe each drug.

• Provide details about the illness being treated.

• If the dose and frequency are unclear, do not be afraid to review them.

• Always be aware of the medication's potential side effects.

• The names of drugs should not be abbreviated.

• Always include the patient's weight and age when writing a prescription.

• Before providing drugs, check the kidney and liver function.

• Do not abbreviate when stating the dosage schedule or mode of administration.

• Specify the treatment duration in time rather than pills.

• Always use extreme caution when taking high-risk drugs.

• Always circle the name on the preprinted prescription paper after signing the prescription.

• If unsure, do not be afraid to double-check the dosage and frequency.

• Never state to hand out the "XXX" number of tablets; always be specific about how long the therapy will last.

• Recheck the calculations to be sure the patient will receive the appropriate therapeutic dose.

• Recheck calculations with another medical professional.

What Is the Role of Communication in Drug Dispensing?

When pharmacists communicate with prescribers and nurses, the pharmacist should:

• Explain the issue and then provide details.

• Suggest potential remedies, such as other drugs.

• Restate any changes to the order.

• Verify that understand.

• Record the discussion and judgment.

• Optimal medicine distribution is likely to occur in a collaborative setting. The team should be bold in discussing and resolving disputes.

• A lack of interprofessional communication hampers the identification of drug mistakes and determining their underlying causes. Open communication within the team should be emphasized.

Conclusion:

Patients may suffer severe effects as a result of medication dispensing mistakes. An interprofessional collaborative team can only achieve accurate medicine administration and reduced errors. Medication is prescribed by clinicians, filled by pharmacists, and given to patients by nurses. An improved communication chain will improve patient care and lower morbidity and death rates. Increased safety compliance and better patient education about their medications provide a check and balance for medical providers. Healthcare professionals are under intense pressure to improve their work habits and create a safety culture while issuing drug orders and prescriptions due to the high incidence of medication-related errors. Although there is no single technique to prevent drug errors completely, healthcare professionals can reduce errors by exercising more caution and collaborating closely with other practitioners, pharmacists, and patients.