Safe Prescribing Flashcards
1
Q
What is medication error?
A
Medication error = preventable event that may lead to inappropriate medication use or patient harm
2
Q
What can medication error events be related to?
A
- Professional practice
- Health care products
- Procedures and systems
- Labelling
- Dispensing
- Distribution
- Administration
- Education
- Monitoring
3
Q
What are examples of medication errors?
A
- Giving patient wrong drug
- Giving wrong dose
4
Q
How can the liklihood of medication errors be reduced (individual and system causes)?
A
- Individual
- Knowledge of remedies
- Skill to intercept harm
- Clinical skill
- Sound judgement
- Error awareness
- Calling for help
- System
- Safety triggers to alert staff
- Culture of speaking up
- Make remedies available
- Support clinician needs
- Foster culture of safety
5
Q
What things increase the risk of medication errors?
A
- Rapid throughout of patient
- New drug developments, extending medicines into new areas
- Increasing complexity of medical care
- Increased specialisation
- Increased use of medicines generally
- People causes
- Fatigue, hunger, concentration, stress, distraction, lack of training, lack of access to information
6
Q
What are some people causes of medication errors?
A
- Fatigue, hunger, concentration, stress, distraction, lack of training, lack of access to information
7
Q
What are the 5Rs that should be remembered when administering medication?
A
- Right patient
- Right drug
- Right dose
- Right route
- Right time
8
Q
What are different types of errors?
A
- Surgery (most common)
- Drug treatment
- Therapeutic mishaps
- Diagnostic errors
9
Q
What patients are most at risk of errors?
A
- Undergoing cardiothoracic, vascular or neurosurgery
- Complex conditions
- Emergency room
- Looked after by inexperienced doctors
- Older patients
10
Q
What are examples of common prescibing errors?
A
- Wrong drug
- Wrong dose
- Inappropriate units
- Illegible prescription
- Failure to take into account drug interactions
- Wrong route
- Calculation errors
11
Q
What can be done to reduce the risk of prescribing errors?
A
- Write legibly
- Avoid abbreviations
- Avoid decimal points
- Always check patient information
12
Q
What are examples of drug formularies where information can be found?
A
- National formularies (such as BNF)
- Grampian joint formulary
- WHO
