An estimated 1 in 20 patients are admitted to the hospital due to problems with their medication and 1 in 100 hospitalized patients are harmed due to medication errors during their stay. The prescribing of medications is the most common health care intervention and medication safety is relevant to all health care professionals and patients, in all

Medication safety is the most challenging goal for pharmacy practice and patient safety professionals in all health care facilities. This book serves as an essential reference guide for planning and implementing a medication safety program. Written by nationally-recognized experts, Medication Safety: A Guide for Health Care Facilities provides a comprehensive analysis of principles and practices associated with the prevention and identification of medication errors, as well as interdisciplinary, facility-wide recommendations for achieving medication safety in all settings. This book is divided into four sections so users can easily find the information they need: the Importance of Medication Safety, the Medication Safety Team, Building a Safe Medication Use System, and Measuring Medication Safety.

The supply and administration of medicines is an area of practice in which a number of healthcare professionals (e.g. nurses, pharmacists and allied health professionals) are involved. Prescribing is a relatively new role which many of these healthcare professionals have adopted. Medication Safety focuses on promoting safety in the delivery of medicines. Chapters explore the various stages in the medication process including safety in prescribing, dispensing and administering drugs. Adverse reactions, parenteral administration, dosage calculations, safety with controlled drugs, and reporting errors and near misses are all addressed in evidence-based contributions from a highly experienced team of contributors. This text is essential reading for all healthcare professionals involved in the delivery of medicines to patients.

v. 1. Research findings -- v. 2. Concepts and methodology -- v. 3. Implementation issues -- v. 4. Programs, tools and products.

Second in a series of publications from the Institute of Medicine's Quality of Health Care in America project Today's health care providers have more research findings and more technology available to them than ever before. Yet recent reports have raised serious doubts about the quality of health care in America. Crossing the Quality Chasm makes an urgent call for fundamental change to close the quality gap. This book recommends a sweeping redesign of the American health care system and provides overarching principles for specific direction for policymakers, health care leaders, clinicians, regulators, purchasers, and others. In this comprehensive volume the committee offers: A set of performance expectations for the 21st century health care system. A set of 10 new rules to guide patient-clinician relationships. A suggested organizing framework to better align the incentives inherent in payment and accountability with improvements in quality. Key steps to promote evidence-based practice and strengthen clinical information systems. Analyzing health care organizations as complex systems, Crossing the Quality Chasm also documents the causes of the quality gap, identifies current practices that impede quality care, and explores how systems approaches can be used to implement change.

In 1996 the Institute of Medicine launched the Quality Chasm Series, a series of reports focused on assessing and improving the nation's quality of health care. Preventing Medication Errors is the newest volume in the series. Responding to the key messages in earlier volumes of the seriesâ€"To Err Is Human (2000), Crossing the Quality Chasm (2001), and Patient Safety (2004)â€"this book sets forth an agenda for improving the safety of medication use. It begins by providing an overview of the system for drug development, regulation, distribution, and use. Preventing Medication Errors also examines the peer-reviewed literature on the incidence and the cost of medication errors and the effectiveness of error prevention strategies. Presenting data that will foster the reduction of medication errors, the book provides action agendas detailing the measures needed to improve the safety of medication use in both the short- and long-term. Patients, primary health care providers, health care organizations, purchasers of group health care, legislators, and those affiliated with providing medications and medication- related products and services will benefit from this guide to reducing medication errors.

"Medication errors are the most common of all medical errors and pose a tremendous emotional and physical cost to patients and economic burden to our health system. The most reliable estimates of medication error in anesthesia place the rate at 1-2 in every 10 administrations, or 1 in every anesthetic. Most of the errors are harmless but other wreak devastation. These errors are a failure to plan well, or to carry out a well-designed plan; less talked about but perhaps more important are routine violations of best practices. Errors arise through fast and slow thinking; violations arise from a myriad of causes. There is an extensive body of expert consensus on how to improve medication safety, starting with an institutional commitment to improving medication safety, and ending with an individual practitioner committing to doing the right thing every time. Technical solutions, pharmacy solutions, standardization, and a safety culture are major themes in medication safety. Despite knowledge of what would make us safer, economic costs, a perceived lack of urgency, human resistance to change all conspire to medication safety difficult to achieve. Low-income countries face particular challenges in medication safety. Despite these challenges, we must dedicate ourselves anew to this goal - our patients deserve no less"--

Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDSâ€"three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems. To Err Is Human breaks the silence that has surrounded medical errors and their consequenceâ€"but not by pointing fingers at caring health care professionals who make honest mistakes. After all, to err is human. Instead, this book sets forth a national agendaâ€"with state and local implicationsâ€"for reducing medical errors and improving patient safety through the design of a safer health system. This volume reveals the often startling statistics of medical error and the disparity between the incidence of error and public perception of it, given many patients' expectations that the medical profession always performs perfectly. A careful examination is made of how the surrounding forces of legislation, regulation, and market activity influence the quality of care provided by health care organizations and then looks at their handling of medical mistakes. Using a detailed case study, the book reviews the current understanding of why these mistakes happen. A key theme is that legitimate liability concerns discourage reporting of errorsâ€"which begs the question, "How can we learn from our mistakes?" Balancing regulatory versus market-based initiatives and public versus private efforts, the Institute of Medicine presents wide-ranging recommendations for improving patient safety, in the areas of leadership, improved data collection and analysis, and development of effective systems at the level of direct patient care. To Err Is Human asserts that the problem is not bad people in health careâ€"it is that good people are working in bad systems that need to be made safer. Comprehensive and straightforward, this book offers a clear prescription for raising the level of patient safety in American health care. It also explains how patients themselves can influence the quality of care that they receive once they check into the hospital. This book will be vitally important to federal, state, and local health policy makers and regulators, health professional licensing officials, hospital administrators, medical educators and students, health caregivers, health journalists, patient advocatesâ€"as well as patients themselves. First in a series of publications from the Quality of Health Care in America, a project initiated by the Institute of Medicine

In this expanded 600+ page edition, Dr. Cohen brings together some 30 experts from pharmacy, medicine, nursing, and risk management to provide the most current thinking about the causes of medication errors and strategies to prevent them.

Written especially for nurses in all disciplines and health care settings, this second edition of The Nurses's Role in Medication Safety focuses on the hands-on role nurses play in the delivery of care and their unique opportunity and responsibility to identify potential medication safety issues. Reflecting the contributions of several dozen nurses who provided new and updated content, this book includes strategies, examples, and advice on how to: * Develop effective medication reconciliation processes * Identify and address causes of medication errors * Encourage the reporting of medication errors in a safe and just culture * Apply human factors solutions to medication management issues and the implementation of programs to reduce medication errors * Use technology (such as smart pumps and computerized provider order entry) to improve medication safety * Recognize the special issues of medication safety in disciplines such as obstetrics, pediatrics, geriatrics, and oncology and within program settings beyond large urban hospitals, including long term care, behavioral health care, critical access hospitals, and ambulatory care and office-based surgery