Medication Safety in Neonates

Abstract

Newborn intensive care units (NICUs) are high-risk areas of care, where complex medical interventions are performed, and are recognized as a resource for improved outcome in premature and low-birth-weight infants or those presenting with acute conditions. This critical environment, along with the vulnerable nature of the population it serves, places patients at risk for medication errors, which can result in permanent harm or death. Promoting safe medication practices requires participation of all individuals involved in the medication use process (e.g., physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, pharmacy technicians). The following recommendations, organized in accordance with the Institute for Safe Medication Practices' Key Elements of the Medication Use System™, will focus on significant areas of concern within the NICU. All individuals caring for neonates, supported by administrators and organizational leaders, should recognize themselves as active partners responsible for the safety of this fragile patient population by participating in the design and sustainment of a safe and efficient medication use system.

Medication safety in neonatal care: a review of medication errors among neonates

“…Dabliz and Levine estimated that 25% of medication errors within the NICU were attributed to administering medication to the wrong patient [Dabliz and Levine, 2012]. The most common causes of misidentification were similar-sounding or identical names and surnames, difficulties in distinguishing multiple-birth babies (i.e.…”

Adverse drug reactions in neonates: a prospective study

“…Symptoms related to ADRs in newborns are often non-specific 15. Therefore, specific training of healthcare professionals to improve ADR awareness, diagnosis, management and prevention is particularly important 7 16…”

Drug Handling in a Paediatric Intensive Care Unit – Can Errors be Prevented by a Three-Step Intervention?

“…Furthermore, our intervention was successful in preventing errors in subcategories such as "Incorrect dissolving/suspending of drugs for PO administration" (42 % reduced to 10 %), or "mixing drugs" (14 % reduced to 1 %) after the intervention programme. The error-prevention in these subcategories stands in contrast to previous studies, which often highlighted drugrelated errors such as wrong-time [ 3 , 22 , 23 ] , wrong-administration-technique [ 23 ] , or patient misidentifi cation [ 8 ] . We, however, could not confi rm such a high prevalence of those errors in the mentioned categories.…”