How to Avoid Medication Error

Background: Medication error can cause critical harm. Medication error may be secondary to medication reconciliation in which the practitioner does not have a complete list of the patient’s medications. It may also result with medication administration (wrong medication, wrong dosage, wrong route, wrong timing, or wrong patient). Medication-related harm is reported to be prevalent in the operating room (OR). Technology has been developed that can reduce the incidence of preventable errors. Barcode-assisted medication administration is routinely used throughout the hospital. Electronic clinical decision support (CDS) is technology that is integrated into the patient’s electronic medical record and provides information to the practitioner to assist with decision-making and to minimize errors. Objective: To identify the incidence of anesthesia self-reported medication errors in 1 tertiary facility and determine if CDS technology could prevent these errors. Design: Retrospect more...