Abstract

THE IMPACT OF EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION STRATEGIES IN REDUCING MEDICATION ERRORS IN A TARTAIRY CARE TEACHING HOSPITAL – A SECOND INTERVENTION STUDY

*Khavane Karna¹, Sanjay Sharma², Shivkumar Inamdar³, Anil Bhandari²

¹Ph.D. Research Scholar, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Jodhpur National University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan-342003, India
²Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Jodhpur National University, Jodhpur, Rajasthan- 342003, India
³HKE Society’s ,MTR Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sedam Road, Gulbarga, Karnataka - 585105, India.

ABSTRACT

Potential activation of clinical pharmacist role is of great importance in reducing medication errors which are a well known problem in hospital. The medication error could be prescribing error, dispensing error and administering errors Present study was aimed to detect and evaluate the incidence, types of medication errors and to assess the severity of medication errors in the medicine wards of Basaveshwar teaching and general hospital, Gulbarga. Prospective study was carried out from February 2012 to August 2012.Inpatients records of patients from six units of medicine department were reviewed during their stay in hospital. Detected medication errors were documented and evaluated. A total of 500 cases of the patients were selected, among them 60.4% were male and 39.6% were females. 37.1% of them were in the age group of 40 to 60 years. 54 medication errors were detected in 35 patients. Maximum medication errors (13) were detected in the month of July 2012. The overall incidence of medication error was found to be 10.8%. A total of 54 medication errors were observed, among them 31.4% were errors in medication ordering and transcription, 24% were errors in medication dispensing and 44.4% were nursing errors in medication administration. The causes of medication error were 66.6% were due to nurses, 18.5% were due to Pharmacists and 14.8% errors were due to physicians. Majority of medication errors were belonging to CVS drug class (20.3%).On evaluation of severity, majority of medication errors 61.1% were classified as category Error, No harm, followed by 35.1% were in category No Error. This study concluded that 10.8% medication errors were detected during study period and revealed that pharmacist can play a major role in preventing these errors by early detection.

Keywords: Medication error, Incidence of error, Severity of error, Inpatient medicine ward, Hospital.