Chapter 6 - Medication errors

Question 1

Define medication error

Answer 1

used to refer to any errors at any point of patient care that cause or have potential to cause patient harm

Question 2

Define “Adverse Drug Event” (ADE)

Answer 2

Medication errors affected by drug reactions

Question 3

What are some issues contributing to errors?

Answer 3

Prescribing medications
transcribing orders
dispensing wrong medication
monitoring vitals and labs

organization issues
educational issues

Question 4

What are the 4 types of medication errors

Answer 4

1. Near miss, events that could have led to an error
2. No-harm error
3. Medication errors causing harm
4. critical incident(medication harm that is serious)

Question 5

What is Medication Reconciliation?

Answer 5

Continuous assessment and updating of patient medication info

Question 6

what are the 3 criteria for Medication Reconciliation to work?

Answer 6

1. Verification
2. Clarification
3. Reconciliaition

Question 7

What are some ways on preventing medication errors?

Answer 7

2 patient identifiers
don’t administer if not prepared by yourself
minimize telephone, verbal orders
list indications next to each other

Question 8

what are some ideas that help preventing medication errors

Answer 8

Avoid - abbreviations
Assume - NEVER assume anything for patient
Do not hesitate - question medication if you can
Do not try - don’t decipher orders, ask the provider, dont do stuff you don’t know how to do or were not trained to do

Question 9

TorF: we can use “trailing zero” when doing medication orders

Answer 9

FALSE

always must leave the number how it is: 1.0 mg is wrong cuz it looks like 10

1 mg is better

Question 10

TorF: always use a “leading zero” for decimal dosages

Answer 10

TRUE

makes it seem that it is 0.25 mg instead of it looking like 25 by itself