An urban medical system's exploratory study of medication errors

Abstract

Aims This study sought to identify patterns of medication errors with respect to shifts, day of week, unit involved, severity, medication class and cause of errors and to propose possible solutions. Design This was a retrospective explorative study using a database containing 605 medication events from two medical centres. Variables assessed include medication type, the error severity, and time the medication was ordered, the unit that the error occurred on and the day of the week of the errors. Methods Simple percentages were used to report the results, and point‐biserial correlation was employed to test for significant differences between the day and night shifts. Results There were no statistically significant findings when comparing event severity against the a.m. or p.m. shifts. The medication classes with the most errors were antibiotics, and the most common reason cited for errors was dose omission. The most commonly reported severity level was a 2 which requires increased patient monitoring.

How do nurse managers describe clinical nurses' work arrangements? A qualitative study

“…The above recommendation is distinct from merely stating that the employment of temporary nurses in itself—without considering the quality of the employed temporary nurses—will affect patient care. Indeed, as the employment of temporary nurses to maintain adequate staffing implies staffing instability (Thériault et al, ), healthcare administrators are typically concerned about whether increased employment of nurses in alternative work arrangements will adversely affect the quality of patient care (Morelock & Kirk, ); however, this instinctive concern is largely unsupported by empirical studies (Simpson & Simpson, ). Recent studies indicate that the resources—such as time—that nurses have, nurses' work experience and nurse‐to‐patient ratios affect the extent to which nurses complete patient care tasks such as the monitoring of patients' fluid intake (Litchfield, Magill, & Flint, ) and the taking of patients' vital signs (Recio‐Saucedo et al, ).…”

Frequency of Medication Administration Timing Error in Hospitals

“…4,24,28,38 Three (13%) studies did not clearly define MATE, measuring MATE as a percentage of all medication administrations, with a range of 3.1% to 39.3%. 29,31,36 Three (13%) studies did not have a clear definition of MATE measuring MATE as a percentage of administration errors resulting in a range of 1% to 10.8%. 30,33,37 To identify potential patterns in calculated frequency between studies, 4 (17%) studies that utilized observation to collect measurement of MATE and shared similar definition and measures (>60 minutes; percentage of administration errors) were compared.…”

Factors causing medication errors in an electronic reporting system

“…The following input variables related to medication errors from the electronic reporting system were examined. We referred to the results of previous studies by Cabilan et al., 2017 ; Härkänen et al., 2015 ; and Morelock & Kirk, 2019 : date of the error report, error type, severity, location, date of detection, date of error occurrence, clinical experience, detection method, medication process stage, medication error type, work hours and detection time. Locations included internal medicine wards and surgical medicine wards.…”

“…As the standards for medical services become more stringent, we must overcome medical errors to improve the quality of care provision. Medication errors are a common medical error (Jachan et al., 2021 ; Morelock & Kirk, 2019 ) and compromise the quality of medical systems by increasing hospitalization and medical costs in developed and developing countries (Ahmed et al., 2015 ).…”

“…Most studies on medication errors have investigated nurses' awareness of medication errors or conducted a questionnaire survey, with few analysing medication error data reported by nurses. Furthermore, while many survey studies (Chiang et al., 2010 ; Gök & Sarı, 2017 ; Lee, 2017 ; Vrbnjak et al., 2016 ; Yung et al., 2016 ) have recommended an increase in the low reporting rate of medication errors, few (Härkänen et al., 2015 ; Morelock & Kirk, 2019 ) have used medication error data to examine factors affecting the risk of near misses and adverse events. Furthermore, no study has examined the characteristics of medication errors reported by nurses according to different error detection methods.…”