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Paramedic self-reported medication errors.

Gary M Vilke1, Stephen V Tornabene, Barbara Stepanski

  • 1San Diego County Division of Emergency Medical Services, San Diego, CA, USA. gmvilke@ucsd.edu

Prehospital Emergency Care
|September 26, 2006
PubMed
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Nine percent of paramedics reported medication errors, with some errors going unreported in quality improvement processes. This highlights the need for enhanced safeguards to reduce prehospital medication administration mistakes.

Area of Science:

  • Prehospital Care
  • Emergency Medical Services
  • Patient Safety

Background:

  • Medication administration errors are identified in prehospital settings through quality improvement reviews.
  • Errors involve dose, medication, route, concentration, and treatment.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the incidence and types of medication errors reported by paramedics.
  • To identify factors contributing to medication errors in the prehospital environment.

Main Methods:

  • A survey was administered to paramedics in San Diego County.
  • The survey tool was developed from literature reviews and previous quality improvement data.

Main Results:

  • 9.1% of paramedics reported medication errors in the past 12 months.

Related Experiment Videos

  • Common errors included dose-related (63%), protocol (33%), and wrong route (21%).
  • Failure to triple check and dosage calculation errors were identified contributing factors.

    • Conclusions:

    • Approximately 9% of surveyed paramedics admitted to medication errors within the last year.
    • A significant portion of these errors were not reported through the established quality improvement system.
    • There is a critical need for improved safeguards to minimize medication errors in prehospital care.