Implementing technologies to prevent medication errors at a high-complexity hospital: analysis of cost and results

Determining Medication Errors in an Adult Intensive Care Unit

INTRODUCTION

Research addressing the costs of Medication errors (MEs) is still scarce despite issues related to patient safety having significant economic and health impacts, making it imperative to analyze the costs and adverse events related to MEs for a better patient, professional, and institutional safety.

AIM

To identify the number of medication errors and verify whether this number was associated with increased hospitalization costs for patients in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU).

METHOD

This retrospective cross-sectional cohort study evaluated secondary data from patients' electronic medical records to compile variables, create a model, and survey hospitalization costs. The statistical analysis included calculating medication error rates, descriptive analysis, and simple and multivariate regression.

RESULTS

The omission error rate showed the highest number of errors per drug dose (59.8%) and total errors observed in the sample (55.31%), followed by the time error rate (26.97%; 24.95%). The omission error had the highest average when analyzing the entire hospitalization (170.40) and day of hospitalization (13.79). Hospitalization costs were significantly and positively correlated with scheduling errors, with an increase of BRL 121.92 (about USD $25.00) (95% CI 43.09; 200.74), and to prescription errors, with an increase of BRL 63.51 (about USD $3.00) (95% CI 29.93; 97.09).

CONCLUSION

We observed an association between two types of medication errors and increased hospitalization costs in an adult ICU (scheduling and prescription errors).

Adherence to safety barriers in medication administration: patients' perception

Objective:

to analyze the perception of patients about health professionals’ adherence to safety barriers in medication administration.

Method:

cross-sectional and correlational study carried out in a hospital in the countryside of São Paulo, with a total of 249 adult patients admitted to the medical clinic. An electronic form developed by the researcher was used. Quantitative variables were analyzed in mean, median and standard deviation. Likert-type variables were calculated according to the perception score and the Bayesian Information criterion was used. The cutoff point for positive assessment of the patients’ perception was 0.75.

Results:

the average perception score was 0.29 and, of the 15 barriers analyzed, eight are never adhered by professionals, in the opinion of most patients. Also, age was the only variable with statistical significance.

Conclusion:

the younger the patient, the better their perception of health professionals’ adherence to safety barriers in medication administration.

Practice-enhancing publications about the medication-use process in 2019

PURPOSE

This article identifies, prioritizes, and summarizes published literature on the medication-use process (MUP) from calendar year 2019 that can impact health-system pharmacy daily practice. The MUP is the foundational system that provides the framework for safe medication utilization within the healthcare environment. The MUP is defined in this article as having the following components: prescribing/transcribing, dispensing, administration, and monitoring. Articles that evaluated one of the steps were gauged for their usefulness in promoting daily practice change.

SUMMARY

A PubMed search was conducted in January 2020 for calendar year 2019 using targeted Medical Subject Headings keywords; in addition, searches of the table of contents of selected pharmacy journals were conducted. A total of 4,317 articles were identified. A thorough review identified 66 potentially practice-enhancing articles: 17 for prescribing/transcribing, 17 for dispensing, 7 for administration, and 25 for monitoring. Ranking of the articles for importance by peers led to the selection of key articles from each category. The highest-ranked articles are briefly summarized, with a mention of why each article is important within health-system pharmacy. The other articles are listed for further review and evaluation.

CONCLUSION

It is important to routinely review the published literature and to incorporate significant findings into daily practice; this article assists in identifying and summarizing the most impactful recently published literature in this area. Health-system pharmacists have an active role in improving the MUP in their institution, and awareness of the significant published studies can assist in changing practice at the institutional level.