Caring for the elderly and avoiding medication errors
73
Anyone caring for the elderly understands the importance of keeping good medication records to ensure that no dangerous medication accidents occur.
The Federal Food and Drug Administration states: A medication error is any preventable event that may cause or lead to inappropriate medication use or harm to a patient. Since 2000, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has received more than 95,000 reports of medication errors. FDA reviews reports that come to MedWatch, the agency's adverse event reporting program. They also explain that reporting these errors is voluntary, so the stats are most likely much higher.
The Institute for Safe Medication Practices has a very long list of all the confusing medication names- http://www.ismp.org/Tools/confuseddrugnames.pdf , A Do Not Crush list- http://www.ismp.org/Tools/DoNotCrush.pdf . One more tip that we use to do our best to avoid medication errors is to include not only the brand name, but the generic name on our medication lists that we carry with us at all times.
Below is just a bit of what I've been reading about this disturbing problem:
Evaluation of causes and frequency of medication errors during ...
Hanuscak TL, Szeinbach SL, Seoane-Vazquez E, MEDICATION ERRORS KILL THOUSANDS EACH YEAR
New York Newsday cited several specific cases, such as: "In 1995, a Texas doctor wrote an illegible prescription causing the patient to receive not only the wrong medication, but at eight times the drug's usually recommended strength. ...
Reichert BJ, McCluskey CF. Am J Health Syst Pharm. 2009;66:1119-1124. The Last Line of Defense Against Medication Errors: What You Need ...
Jul.30, 2009 Health and Fitness Tags : Advertisements, Antibiotics, Chain Pharmacy, Developing Systems, drug safety, health, hearing loss, Internal Medicine, Malpractice, medical, Medication, Medication Error, Medication Errors, ...
Product-Related Issues Lead To Potential Errors With ...
Check into errors. Cover errors to the IRB and contemplate sponsor. ISMP also urges organizations to communication errors with investigational drugs to the USP-ISMP Medication Errors Reporting Program. By learning more about errors, ...
Tips To Prevent Medication Errors - InjuryBoard.com http://bit.ly ...
Tips To Prevent Medication Errors - InjuryBoard.com http://bit.ly/uhChS.
Studies have shown that med errors are preventable and taking shortcuts when administering meds have proven to be costly and fatal. Tags: Forensic Nursing, Forensic Nursing Chronicles, Forensic Nursing Theories, Medication Errors.
Children Caring for Parents and Avoiding Medical Errors
Keeping good medication and medical records can help prevent dangerous medical and medication errors. Sometimes they do this by hiring a caregiver to come to their home, but others will often drop their parents off at a senior daycare ...
