Clinical pharmacist endeavour at medication error mitigation through comprehensive surveillance

Abstract

Medication errors are frequent incidents in health care settings. Medication errors are the most common issue among medical 
professionals in different ways including Prescribing, intending, dispensing and administration errors. .The study was carried out 
in a tertiary care hospital in Malappuram district of Kerala and involved collection of prescriptions from various departments. 
In this study the medication errors were stratified on the basis of several criteria such as medical staff involved, departmental 
distributions etc. The main reason for medication errors was found to be poly-pharmacy and multiple co-morbidities such as 
hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular, renal and hepatic diseases in geriatric patients. Anonymous selfreporting, incident reporting, critical incident method, chart review method, direct observation method etc can be adopted in 
to the system to monitor the medication errors. Numerous methods are available to prevent medication errors in different countries with few of them being patient education, prior authorization, electronic technology such as bar coding, electronic prescription records, E-prescribing, electronic Drug Utilisation Review, automated medication dispensing and internal quality control procedure. Patient counseling is an effective method for preventing and correcting of prescribing, intending, dispensing and administration medication errors.