Medication errors are a significant concern in the healthcare system, and these mistakes can lead to prolonged illness, disability and even death. What should patients know about medication errors?
Medication errors can take many different forms.
Medication mistakes harm more than one million patients around the world every year. These errors can happen in various forms, including:
- Prescription errors: A doctor prescribing the wrong medication, dosage or duration for a patient’s treatment is the most common type of medication error. Mistakes can happen because of messy handwriting, drugs that sound alike, inappropriate abbreviations for drug names or not considering a patient’s allergies or other medicines.
- Dispensing errors: These mistakes happen in pharmacies when the pharmacist gives out the wrong drug, the wrong amount or wrong instructions. This can happen because they misunderstood the prescription, because the packaging looked similar or simply because of human error.
- Administration errors: These occur when healthcare providers give the wrong medicine, the wrong dose, or the wrong route (swallowing instead of injecting, for example). Often, these mistakes come from not communicating well, not checking the patient’s medical records, or getting confused by drugs with similar names or packages.
- Monitoring errors: After patients take their medication, healthcare providers need to watch how it affects them. If they do not watch closely enough, they might miss bad reactions to the medicine, which can make the patient’s condition worse.
How can these errors impact patients?
At the less severe end of the spectrum, medication errors can cause temporary discomfort or minor adverse reactions. However, in more serious cases, these errors can lead to:
- Allergic reactions: Some patients might have severe allergic reactions if they get the wrong medicine.
- Worsening medical conditions: If a patient gets the wrong medicine or dose, their health might not improve, and it could even get worse.
- New health issues: The wrong medicine can cause new health problems, like damage to organs. This is especially true if the medication is potent.
- Fatalities: In the most tragic cases, medication errors can result in death.
Medication errors are a serious and prevalent issue that can lead to significant harm to patients. Patients should ask questions and stay informed about their medications to actively participate in their own care. They should also keep in mind that they can hold their healthcare provider responsible for errors that impact their health and well-being.