medication error?

[strawberry2006]

hi, i'm a nursing student wondering about how to prevent medication error.

what have you seen worked very well reducing meds error and what not. any specific tools/ways you use to reduce meds errors?

i've read a few articles about medication error. grissinger & kelly said in their article 7,000 people die each year because of medication error (grissinger, m. c. & kelly, k., 2005). that is a lot, and i wouldn't want to make a mistake. please give me some advice (i.e. tools, ways, and/or your stories about how you made an error, what should be done to prevent it, and/or what should be done to prevent the future occurrence (if it's ok with you)) for me to avoid making medication errors in clinical and after graduation!

thank you!

reference:

fields, m. (2005). intravenous medication safety system averts high-risk medication errors and provides actionable data. nursing administration quarterly, 29(1), 78-87.

grissinger, m. c. & kelly, k. (2005). reducing the risk of medication errors in women. journal of women's health, 14(1), 61-7.

[strawberry2006]

My job is in process of going over to a computer system of giving medications.

Each med card for each person will have a bar code on it and the cards will be scanned.

Our DON swears this is going to reduce med errors, but we'll see. Any computer system is really only as good as the person entering the data.

It is supposed to be turned on by April 1!

Thank you, LPN1974 for your reply. Please let me know how you like your new system after Apr. 1st!

[lisaow]

at the hospital where i work, we do the following, and we have a very low percentage of med errors:

- take a polaroid picture of the patient upon admission and place it with the mar

- put an arm/leg band on the patient and verify (both name, dob, and hospital number) with each med administration and at each shift, and document the verification on the nursing flowsheet.

- bring the mar with us to the patient's bedside during med administration

this might sound cumbersome, but, we'd rather take the extra time than to worry about med errors.

it's true. get into an early habit. then its not so bad. and, great piece of mind.