Medication Errors in Healthcare

Topic Overview

Medication errors can negatively impact patient outcomes, increase costs, and have legal ramifications. They are a severe and pervasive problem in the healthcare industry. These errors occur when a prescription, drug is dispensed, administered, or monitored improperly (World Health Organization, 2022). Pharmaceutical errors typically involve miscommunication between medical professionals, administering the wrong medication or dosage, and patient-related errors such failing to adhere to recommended schedules. Medication errors are a critical issue because they can harm patients’ faith in the medical system and cause discomfort, ranging from minor side effects to potentially lethal problems.
I’m interested in medication errors on a personal and professional level. I’ve worked as a nurse in the past and have witnessed medication errors in professional settings. These interactions have influenced who I am and motivated me to learn more about the issue. In order to improve patient care and the standard of healthcare, medication errors must be addressed as they can have serious negative effects on patients. I am interested about finding solutions and spreading knowledge about reducing pharmaceutical errors in order to improve patients’ overall well-being.
Thanks to my expertise as a nurse, I have a firsthand understanding of how pharmaceutical mistakes can happen in a medical context. Medication errors are caused by systemic weaknesses, busy workloads, and inadequate communication (Sabzi et al., 2019). I’ve also participated in incident reporting and root cause analysis to determine the causes of these errors and implement future preventative measures. My work experience has taught me how crucial it is to implement a thorough pharmaceutical security strategy that makes use of technology to improve communication, reduce the possibility of mistakes, and foster a culture of safety. My interest in pharmaceutical errors has grown as a result of this information, and I’m more determined than ever to advocate for safer drug usage in healthcare.
Finding Peer-Reviewed Articles
When looking for peer-reviewed research on pharmaceutical errors in healthcare, I used the following criteria: I only looked at articles that specifically addressed the issue of pharmaceutical errors in hospital settings to make sure they focused on the specific topic of interest. In order to find the most recent research and information on the subject, I limited my search to papers that had been published within the last three to five years, taking into account the possibility of changes in healthcare practices and recommendations over time. I restricted my search to articles published in English because it is the language most frequently used in scientific and medical publications, making the content easier to comprehend and assess. I conducted this search using scholarly resources that are often used in healthcare research, such as PsycINFO, Google Scholar, PubMed, and CINAHL.