Non-Adherence: A Patient Study

When it comes to medication errors several things may occur such as adverse drug event, unexpected deterioration, and even death in severe cases. AHRQ (2015) states, “an adverse drug event (ADE) is defined as harm experienced by a patient as a result of exposure to a medication, and ADEs account for nearly 700,000 emergency department visits 100,000 hospitalizations each year.” There are many ways that errors may occur such as dispensary errors, prescription errors

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.

Medication errors are the leading cause of morbidity and preventable death in hospitals (Adams). In fact, approximately 1.5 million Americans are injured each year as a result of medication errors in hospitals (Foote). Not only are medication errors harmful to patients but medication errors are very expensive for hospitals. Medication errors cost America’s health care system 3.5 billion dollars per year (Foote).Errors in medication administration occurs when one of the five rights of medication administration is omitted. The five rights are: a) the right dose, b) the right medication, c) the right patient, d) the right route of administration, and e) the right time of delivery (Adams). Medication administration is an essential part of

Nearly half of seniors do not take their medications when or how they were prescribed. There are mistakes on dosages, methods of delivery, time of delivery, what they should be taken with, and even if they should still be taken. Compounding the issue, most seniors over the age of 65 are taking between 8 and 13 different medications. Put these numbers together and it is no wonder that problems with medication management are one of the leading reasons seniors end up in the emergency room, and is the number one reason seniors end up back in the hospital after being recently discharged. According to a study published in "Pharmacotherapy", nearly 70 percent of hospitalized seniors suffered from at least one

In conclusion, addressing the problem of non-adherence would help alleviate the burden of added costs to healthcare. When patients take their medications as prescribed, they are considered to be adherent. Adherence has two components that are complementary to each other: persistence and implementation

Medication adherence is described as the extent to which the patients take medication as prescribed by the health care provider. To ensure the patients receive proper care, health care systems must implement procedures to successfully meet their needs and overall improve their quality of life. However, there are several reasons that affect proper medical care, which ultimately results in an increase in health care expenses and poorer health outcomes for patients. Studies have shown that approximately 50% of patients do not take their chronic medications as prescribed and that nonadherence can cost the health care system nearly $100 to $289 billion per year (1). Medication adherence is difficult to achieve due to ineffective communication between

The medication error occurred as the vasoactive drug Vasopressin infused at 0.4 units per hour instead of the correct dose of 0.04 units per hour. Unfortunately, the gentleman experienced a myocardial infarction yet favorably, the patient recovered without incident. While the patient outcome was not affected in this particular incident, the facts that this error was not discovered for sixteen hours and through multiple levels employees, pharmacy, computerized order entry, nursing, physicians, is alarming for this and future mistakes. For prevention of future medication or order errors this problem should be investigated by means of a root cause analysis, establishing causes and

Optimizing drug therapy is an essential part of caring for an older person. The process of prescribing a medication is complex and includes: deciding that a drug is indicated, choosing the best drug, determining a dose and schedule appropriate for the patient's physiologic status, monitoring for effectiveness and toxicity, educating the patient about expected side effects, and indications for seeking consultation. Multiple factors contribute to the appropriateness and overall quality of drug prescribing. These include avoidance of inappropriate medications, appropriate use of indicated medications, monitoring for side effects and drug levels, avoidance of drug-drug interactions, and involvement of the patient and integration of patient values.

In all honesty I enjoyed the medical adherence project. It is not often in many of my college courses I get to participate in an hands on project. Participating in the medical adherence project I believe allows one to understand to some degree what one has to go through with a chronic illness. Taking the red pill and blue pill was fairly easy for me. I have struggled on and off with severe acne for around 9-10 years. Over that course of time I was on two different antibiotics for two years. Both that I was prescribed were to be taken in the morning and night. I as well over this course have had some type of facial regimen almost every day since I have struggled with acne. Though, it has taught me consistency and has ingrained in me regimens.

Medication adherence is one of the most important challenge in healthcare research due to its complexity and impact on overall health outcomes. The work suggests that non-adherence is frequent for all drug classes and the causes are attributed to characteristics of the medication itself, high cost of prescription drugs, lack of patient education and psychological variables. Most of the solution defined to address the level of non-adherence stresses the importance of developing HIT infrastructures. The collection and sharing of healthcare related data has been facilitated by the advances in ensuring EHRs while the patients are treated in hospital.

The phenomenon of medication non-adherence, such as Belinda’s case, is not uncommon in patients with mental health disorders. As discussed above, barriers such as stigma, efficacy, side effects of the medications, socioeconomic status, and lacked insight can be the contributing factors to this phenomenon.

The higher incidence rate from the above suggested that the medication errors is an issue which is preventing the quality service. The puzzle often starts with whose problem is it. the medication error is the problem of all health care professionals and due to this errors the patients has to suffer. While discussing or thinking about an issue, possible solution is already on its way. But the

Regarding the barriers of non-adherence, (Table 5). The commonest reasons reported by respondents for non-adherence to medication taking were forgetting their medication (86.7%)in control group followed by complexity of therapy 76.7% in both group . This finding is in accordance with that Bernardino et al. (2006), who found that, hypertensive patients may fail to take their medication due to forgetting, followed by complexity therapy. At the end of the study after educational intervention and 12-week follow-up, improvements in metabolic parameters and diet, exercise, and drug therapy compliance could be the result of increased disease awareness, lifestyle modifications, and regular follow-up. We think that educational program in combination with telephone follow-up contributes to this awareness and improvements.. In the present study, barriers of compliance to follow up were markedly due to difficult transportation 76.7% in both groups This finding goes in accordance with that of Finnerty, Mattie and Finnerty (2003), who reported that the causes of poor compliance to follow up clinic were Difficult transportation, long waiting time, overcrowded clinics and inconvenient place for waiting was considered another barrier of compliance. Another barrier of compliance to diabetic diet was the family could not serve special food representing 80% of control group and 26.7% in study. this might be due to the beneficial role of health education to patients and their families about the importance of social support in diabetic treatment treatment. This finding was in accordance with that reported by Korhonen et al.

Adequate and useful knowledge about patient adherence has yet not been acquired. Interventions to improve adherence do exist, but only about half of them seem to be effective (Haynes, 2008). Similarly, adherence theories also exist, but are incapable of sufficiently explaining the concept. Thus, the widespread challenge of non adherence to medical treatment persists, leading to negative health outcomes and deterioration of quality of life of a substantial number of patients (Burke et. al., 2001; Einarson,

The purpose of the systematic review is to analyze the literature in order to develop a comprehensive summary of adherence rate in relation to assessment methods and medication types. In addition, based on the Pediatric Self-Management Model they explore the association between medication adherence and key demographic, medical, and psychosocial factors.