Medical experts are of the view that medication error has increasingly become complex in recent times and has become a major cause of preventable patient harm.  These errors are avertable and such events occur due to lack of professional care including prescribing, product labeling, packaging and nomenclature.

According to Dr Shobha Rani R Hiremath, principal, Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy, medical errors include prescribing, dispensing and administration of the drug. They may or may not result in adverse consequences but are definitely preventable. For instance, an incorrect drug selection for patients, prescribing contra-indicated drug and errors in quality.

Dispensing errors and similar sounding drugs like Lasix which contains furosemide which is a direutic can be mistaken for Losec containing omeprazole for duodenal ulcers. Yet another situation is the administering wrong drug to the right patient, she added.

Airing similar views was Dr Rajesh Balakrishna, clinical pharmacist, Aramco John Hopkins Hospital, Saudi Arabia, who said that inadequate knowledge about drug indications, contraindications and not considering the individual patient factors such as allergies, pregnancies and co-morbidities may lead to medication errors. Major contributors in this context are look alike and sound alike drugs, medicines with ambiguous nomenclature, inappropriate administration of the drugs and irrational prescriptions.

Speaking at a seminar organised by the Department of Pharmacy Practice, Al-Ameen College of Pharmacy, Dr. Balakrishna said that various strategies can be adopted to prevent medication errors such as use of generic names, tailor prescribing for each patient, noting medication history, understand high risk medication, take precautions and report errors to prevent. Medications can improve health when used wisely and correctly.

Delving on the topic, ‘Medication Errors-A silent threat to patient safety and technological innovations in pharmaceutical care’, he said that due to scientific and technological breakthroughs, electronic health records (EHR) have become more popular recently. Computerized Patient Records (CPR) enable real-time review of diagnoses and care plans to ensure that established standards of care are being met.

It is assumed that patient-identifiable information can be obtained across departments by linking unique patient numbers. Electronic health records can be used to generate alerts, warnings, and suggestions across the health care teams.

Technological innovations help in reducing disparity between the amount and the quality of care delivered to different individuals. Real time review of patient historical data, assessment of diagnoses, use of procedures, evaluation of outcomes and elaborate storage capabilities for longer periods of time become effortless. Retrieval of the information is almost immediate. The record is continuously updated and is available concurrently for use everywhere. EHR systems have some built-in intelligence capabilities, such as recognizing abnormal lab results, or potential life threatening drug interactions. These records are flexible, allowing users to design and utilize reporting formats tailored to their needs besides enabling them to organize and display data in various formats. Further, EHR can reduce charting time and charting errors, increases the productivity of healthcare workers and reduces medical errors due to illegible notes, he said.

“To prevent medication errors, it is critical to ensure patients receive the right drug at the right dose and by the right route,” pointed out Dr Hiremath.