Browsing by Subject "high alert medicine"
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(2015)Background: Medication errors are the most important individual factor that jeopardizes patient safety in human care. The patient's medication process is a chain of successive operations which involves different health care providers and the medicine user. All the stages of the medication process are susceptible to the medication errors. Medication errors are approached from the system's point of view by James Reason`s (1990) theory of Human Error. Instead of blaming individuals the theory concentrates on developing operations models which enable identification of medication errors in the organizations. The development of medication safety culture in the human medication has led to systems which tolerate human mistakes and prevent errors. The increasing number of animals and pets and their changing status in the society have raised discussion about the medication safety in veterinary care. Little research has been conducted in this field. Objective: The objective of the study was to identify the most typical veterinary medication errors and their root causes. The medication management processes of veterinary care can be developed safer by becoming aware of the root causes of medication errors. Study design and data: All the cases investigated by the Assessment Board for Damages in Veterinary Practice in 2002-2013 considering medication errors (n=79) were analysed with the help of the structured data collection sheet by using descriptive statistics. The most typical cases were studied more in detail by using simplified Root Cause Analysis (RCA). Results: The medication errors found were related to the care of dogs (n=34), horses (n=26), bovines (n=10), cats (n=7) and pigs (n=2). The most general therapeutic groups that had caused medication errors were antibacterials for systemic use (17% of all the medicines related to the medication errors), NSAIDs and antirheumatic drugs (12%), neuroleptics and tranquillizers (12%), and analgesics (12%). Of the drugs, 39% were high alert medicines. Of the errors, 36% were related to the off label use (usage deviating from the summary of product characteristics, SPC). The error types which appeared most commonly in the cases were wrong route of administration (18% of all the medication errors), wrong dose (16%) and untreated diagnosed conditions left without the medicine by the veterinarian (15%). Because of the character of the data the majority of the medication errors occurred in the beginning of the medication process. It was estimated that 81% of the medication errors would have been preventable. Some of the root causes found were the lack of the commitment to the established care practice, environmental factors, communication problems, availability of tools, hurry and factors related to management, information and staff. Conclusion: The material of Assessment Board for Damages in Veterinary Practice gives valuable information about the veterinary medication errors. It is possible to influence the root causes of veterinary medication errors by paying attention to the management related factors and communication in veterinary care and improving access to therapeutic guidelines and electronic databases, and by expanding the electronic prescribing to veterinary care. The highest priority is to get Pharmaca Fennica Veterinaria to an electronic form.
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(2016)Medication safety meaning the safety of using medication is an important part of patient safety. Medication errors are the most common preventable threats of patient safety. Medication errors can occur in all stages of the medication process. Rather than blaming individuals involved in the process, incidents should be evaluated based on system thinking with an aim of identifying system and process-based weaknesses allowing errors to happen. James Reason's human error theory provides a good framework to investigate the topic from this perspective. The objective of this study was to gather information on the medication errors based on the Patient Insurance Centre 2013-2014 data of compensated medication errors. One of the aims was to identify different types of medication errors and gather information on their backgrounds and drugs involved. Another aim was to investigate the causes behind the medication errors and the views of the people involved on the contributin factors of these errors. Additionally the study aimed at identifying situations where interprofessional collaboration could have prevented medication errors from occurring. Finally the results of the study were also compared with the results of the earlier studies done using similar data. The data of the study consisted of 205 cases where medication error had caused compensated patient injury. Factors behind the errors were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The examples of most common cases were investigated more in depth through simplified root-cause analysis. Content analyses were used to gather information on the views of the people involved in errors as well as on the possibilities of preventing errors through interprofessional collaboration. The most frequent error type was omission of medication. The majority of the errors occurred in the early stages of the process when decisions on medication and treatment were done. There were altogether 250 drugs in the data out of which 98 different active ingredients were identified. Antithrombotic agents were the most common therapeutic group causing medication errors. 37% of all drugs included in data were classified as high alert medicines. More efficient use of the interprofessional collaboration could have prevented several medication errors. The number of medication errors had somewhat increased compared to earlier studies but the profiles of errors were very similar. The data of Patient Insurance Centre provides valuable information on medication errors across Finland. More accurate information on factors leading to medication errors could be obtained by improving voluntary nationwide reporting. This would make it easier to develop operating models that improve patient safety.
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