Prevalence, risk factors, consequences and strategies for reducing medication errors in Australian hospitals: a literature review

The purpose of this paper is to examine medication errors in Australian hospitals from a nursing perspective. This paper provides a detailed review of past and current literature to examine prevalence rates and risk factors for medication errors. It also describes unintended injury or harm, also known as adverse events, associated with a medication error, and proposes strategies to counteract them. According to the literature, approximately two percent of patients in an acute hospital setting will experience a medication error. Administration of medications has remained a high risk task for registered nurses, and for this reason, the strategies to reduce error discussed in this paper will be predominantly nursing focussed. The occurrence of a medication error is a significant issue in the health care setting, and although the relative risk of an individual error occurring is low, the rate of error remains perceivably high in clinical practice today. With continual technological and pharmaceutical advances, the medication administration environment is becoming increasingly complex. Given the nature of medication therapy, it is near impossible to avoid all error, human and otherwise.