Illegible Prescription Analysis

All persons who administer medications should have adequate access to patient information, as close to the point of use as possible, including medical history, known allergies, prognosis, and treatment plan, to assess the appropriateness of administering the medication. (National Coordinating Council for Medication Error Reporting and Prevention).

Not only does the electronic method of prescribing save time, it has also cut down on the number of accidents caused by the misinterpretation of handwriting. Although now almost obsolete, hand-written prescriptions have been the cause of many medical errors because certain sound-alike or look-alike drugs have, in the past, been incorrectly substituted for one another. A report given by the insurance company, Excellus BlueCross BlueShield disclosed that if all physicians were to begin using electronic-prescription systems, “more than two million adverse reactions or events – ranging from inconsequential to severe – could be avoided each year” (wgrz.com). According to pharmacist and associate director for the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Drug Safety, Jerry Phillips, “Six-hundred sound-alike or look-alike drug pairs have been identified as possible sources of error since 1992” (nytimes.com). For example, Lamictal, a mood-stabilizing anticonvulsant, is quite similar in spelling to Lamisil, an antifungal drug. Because of these strong similarities, it is not difficult to understand how easy it could be for medical personnel to mistake certain medications. But with e-prescribing, because the prescription is sent directly from the prescriber to the pharmacy, the number of accidents caused by misinterpretation of handwriting has already been

According to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA 2009), the wrong route of administrating medication accounts for 1.3 million injuries each year. An article published in September issue of the Journal of Patient Safety estimates there are between 210,000 and 400,000 deaths per year associated with medical errors. This makes medical errors the third leading cause of deaths in the United States, behind that comes heart disease and cancer. To prevent medical errors always follow the Three Checks and most importantly the Rights of Medication Administration. The “Rights of Medication Administration” helps to ensure accuracy when administering medication to a patient. When administering medication the administer should ensure they have the Right Medication, Right Patient, Right Dosage, Right Route, Right Time, Right Route, Right Reason, and Right Documentation. Also remember the patient has the right to refuse, assess patient for pain, and always assess the patient for signs of effects.

Organisational policy and procedures should include how to receive and record medication, safe storage, prescribing, dispensing, administration, monitoring and

The person dispensing must also be appropriately trained, follow safe systems of work and understand the side effects of various drugs; be able to access appropriate information and understand when to access advice or further information

For many patients the scariest part of being in the hospital is having to rely on other people to control your life changing decisions. One large part of this is the medications one is given while in our care. I can only imagine what it must be like for patients to have a stranger to come in and start administering drugs to me. This would be especially scary if I did not know what these medications did, or what negative effects could be caused by taking them. Unfortunately, the fear of medication errors that many patients have are not unfounded. Estimates range from 1.5 to 66 million patients a year have medication errors occur while they are in the care of health care professionals. Considering all of the technology we have at our

6. Right documentation- The seven rights should be documented with great detail along with any adverse events and instructions provided to the patient regarding being alert of reactions and what steps to take. This step should always follow the administration of medications. The person who has administered the medication needs to verify again that all the seven rights were followed to make sure that no medication errors were made. After the end of this order,without leaving any lines or spaces the person administering the order signs his or her name along with there credentials and followed by the date and time the order was given. In some instances the medical assistant may write down the information regarding a medication administered by the provider in the provider’s stead,but the provider still needs to sign, date and time the entry personally. The medical assistant should never document a medication for anyone else nor should anyone else record medication that the medical assistant (you)

All medical records need to be complete, accurate, and legible. Entries in the patient’s medical record that are not clearly written can lead to medical errors. If documentation is illegible clarification of orders, progress notes, medication dosages must first be confirmed prior to initiating patient treatment. (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 2016)

Medication errors are focused on: terms and definitions; incidence of and harm; risk factors; avoidance; disclosure, legalities & consequences (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Medication errors categories have been developed by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP). Examples of these categories are based on prescribing, omitting drugs not administered, timing, unauthorized drug, wrong dosage, wrong preparation, expired drug, not using laboratory data to monitor toxicity (Wittich, Burkle & Lanier, 2014). Additionally, this article examines in depth common causes leading to medication errors, drug nomenclature, similar sounding drugs, unapproved abbreviations and handwriting, medical staff shortages and manufacturer medication shortages. Even though this article provides an informative overview for physicians, other allied health personnel may benefit too. This is valuable knowledge for the health care professional not just physicians in order to provide safe care for their

In the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report in 2006, Preventing Medication Error, more than 1/3 of the 1.5 million adverse drug events that were recorded in the United States each year occurred in an outpatient setting. Likewise, in 2008 IOM released a report that laid emphases on the need for setting universal standards within prescribing and dispensing practices. Multiple studies reported that an increased prevalence of patient adherence to taking prescribed medications can be compromised by their inability to comprehend or understand the directions for taking the medication (Wolf et al., 2016). The inability to understand and interpret prescription drug labels were recognized as the leading cause of a large proportion of outpatient medication error and adverse events, as patients may possibly accidentally misuse a prescribed

Over past decade, several investigator groups have attempted to create, validate, and implement screening tools to detect prescription errors, and listing the drugs that carry a high risk of inappropriate in elderly patients. Screening tools including USA Beers Criteria [6], Medication Appropriate Index (MAI) [7] and the European Screening Tool of Older Person's Potentially Inappropriate Prescriptions (STOPP) and Screening Tool to Alert doctors to the Right Treatment (START) [8] are the most widely used criteria for the detection of prescription errors. Explicit criteria of STOPP/START criteria contains specific clinical and drug recommendations that can reduce PIP in older patients and was considered ‘most promising’ compared to other existing

Medication error is one of the biggest problems in the healthcare field. Patients are dying due to wrong drug or dosage. Medication error is any preventable incident that leads to inappropriate medication use or harms the patient while the medication is in the control of the health care professional,or patient (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 2015). It is estimated about 44,000 inpatients die each year in the United States due to medication errors which were indeed preventable (Mahmood, Chaudhury, Gaumont & Rust, 2012). There are many factors that contribute to medication error. However, the most common that factors are human factors, right patient information, miscommunication of abbreviations, wrong dosage. Healthcare providers do not intend to make medication errors, but they happen anyways. Therefore, nursing should play a tremendous role to reduce medication error

Illegible handwriting is the most common factor of error-prone abbreviation medication errors. Medication error have been reduced due to computerized order-entry systems although paper prescriptions may still be in use.

The first step is to make sure you are giving the medication to the right patient. In order for you to know that you have the right patient, check the identification band on the patient wrist, ask patient to state his or her full name, and ask his date of birth. Even if the patient is confused or unresponsive still use two or three identifiers by comparing his or her medical record number and the date of birth on the MAR with the information given on the patient’s identification band.

Major deliverables include eliminating the risk of discrepancies, updating old data, entering new data, refilling existing prescriptions and ensuring the security of the database system. Moreover, changes in the patients condition will have to be accounted for timely so that accuracy in medical prescriptions can be ensured. A proper firewall system must be in place so and besides ensuring security and eliminating intrusion threats, it must also be ensured that the privacy and confidentiality of all details pertaining to patients and hospital particulars (Federman, 2006).